


With a Y

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Category: Glee
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alive Finn Hudson, And Statistics, Board Games, Brotherly Love, Childhood Trauma, Confrontations, Damn Lies, Established Friends With Benefits, Estrangement, Family, Family Conflict, First Meetings, Fix-It of Sorts, Foster Care, Friends With Benefits to Actual Relationship, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Late Night Conversations, Letters, Lies, M/M, Meet The Glee Club, Mother-Son Relationship, Nickel Tour Of Lima Ohio, Nightmares, On Hiatus, Past Child Abuse, Photographs, Queer Themes, Questions, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-16 03:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: An unexpected phone call from Cincinnati brings a hidden relationship to light and sends Finn—and Puck—down a rabbit hole of family secrets. Can the Hudson-Hummel family dynamics survive the unraveling of 18 years of lies?





	1. P Value = 513

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to **david of oz** for his thorough and excellent (as always) editing, and much gratitude to **gleennui** for being our trusty on-call beta reader! 
> 
> This work addresses some sensitive subject matters. Please read the additional tags for warnings. If you note any content we haven't adequately tagged for, comment and let us know. 
> 
> This fic will update at ~11 on Wednesdays. We hope you'll subscribe and spend Wednesdays With a Y with us.

When Finn’s phone starts vibrating in his pocket at the beginning of his statistics class, he pulls it out to check, since everyone important in his life knows his class schedule and wouldn’t call him during a math class unless it were important. He doesn’t recognize the number with a 513 area code, though, so he sends the call to voicemail and puts the phone back in his pocket. Five minutes later, his phone vibrates again, and when Finn checks, it’s the same 513 number. Ten minutes after he sends that call to voicemail, it vibrates again; once again, same unfamiliar 513 number. He finally puts the phone in the bottom of his backpack just to stop the damn thing from vibrating his butt off while he desperately tries to understand p values. 

By the end of class, when Finn retrieves his phone from his backpack, he has eight missed calls from the 513 number, but not a single voicemail. Whoever wanted so badly to reach him during statistics must not have needed to actually speak to him. He chalks it up to a sales call or one of those “you have stayed in one of our hotels before and have been chosen for a free trip!” scam calls and doesn’t think about it again until he and Puck are eating dinner at the dining hall, when the phone starts vibrating again.

“Seriously?” Finn says, glaring at the 513 number displayed on his phone. 

“Are you— no, you don’t have any bills to be late on, so you’re not avoiding a bill collector,” Puck says. “Who is it?” 

“I don’t know, but this same number called me _eight_ times during stats today,” Finn says. “No voicemail any time.”

“So answer it now?” Puck says. “Maybe they have the wrong number and they just need you to tell them.” 

“Now I’m kind of annoyed with them, though,” Finn says. The call rolls into voicemail and, predictably, the caller doesn’t leave a message. 

“Maybe it’s someone in jail and they need to be bailed out,” Puck guesses. 

“I thought you got some kind of automated message for those. That would’ve been in my voicemail.”

“Yeah, and most people’d call your stepfather, not you, for bail.” 

“513,” Finn says, frowning at his phone. “That’s Cinci, right?”

“Yeah, and pretty much only Cinci.” 

Finn’s phone lights up and starts buzzing again. “Jesus Christ. What is this guy’s deal?” Finn says. 

“Do you want _me_ to answer it?” Puck asks. 

“Nah, I guess I’ll just answer it and tell them I don’t want to buy anything and I don’t believe I’m getting anything for free,” Finn says. He answers the call. “Hello?”

“Is this Finn Christopher Hudson, born August 24, 1993?” a girl’s voice asks, sounding out of breath. 

“Uh, yeah. This is him. He. Me. I’m him,” Finn says. “Who is this?”

“It’s Lexi. Alexis.” She pauses, as if Finn should know who she is. 

“Okay. Lexi Alexis who?” Finn asks. 

“Alexis Hudson,” she says slowly. “Kimberly’s daughter?” 

Finn doesn’t know any Kimberlys, but the ‘Hudson’ part is familiar, at least. “Oh. So are you like a cousin or something?” 

“Oh. Oh, shit,” Alexis says. “She didn’t tell you at all?” 

“She who? Kimberly? I don’t actually know Kimberly,” Finn says. “I’m sorry. Maybe you have the wrong Finn Hudson.”

“Your dad was Christopher, right?” 

“Right,” Finn says, looking at Puck and mouthing ‘ready to go yet?’ at him. Puck nods, looking slightly concerned. 

“Okay, yeah, you’re the right Finn Hudson,” Alexis says. “Kimberly, my mom, uh, was with your dad, when he came down to Cincinnati.” 

“Uh, no, he wasn’t,” Finn says. “My mom’s name is Carole, Christopher’s _wife_.” He stands and puts his dinner trash on his tray, nodding towards the trash can to indicate that Puck should follow him. 

“Yeah, I know. After that, after he left Lima, but before he died,” Alexis says. “You know about that at least, right?” 

“Look,” Finn says, lowering his voice as much as he can and still have Alexis hear him over the ambient dining hall noise, “my dad went to Cincinnati to do drugs, not to have an affair, but thanks for calling to bring that up, whoever-you-are.”

“My mom did drugs, too!” Alexis says. “That’s… that’s another story. I was calling because I hoped you didn’t agree with your mom about me.” 

Finn and Puck exit the dining hall, walking back towards their apartment just off campus. “I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to disagree or agree with or whatever with my mom about. I don’t have any idea who you are or what you’re talking about, other than supposedly your mom and my dad knew each other.”

“Your dad and my dad are the same person,” Alexis says. “And your mom didn’t want my mom or I around.” 

“What?” Finn says loudly and stops walking. Puck stops too and raises his eyebrows. 

“I’m your half-sister,” Alexis says. 

“No, I don’t _have_ a sister,” Finn says. “I’m an only child. Neither one of my parents had any other kids.”

“Sister?” Puck mouths. “Surprise sister?” Finn shrugs and shakes his head. 

“I know it’s kind of gross to think about your parents like that, I get it, but I promise you, I’m the daughter of Christopher Hudson and Kimberly Miller.” 

“That’s crazy. If I had a sister, or a half-sister, or any kind of amount of sister, I’d know about it,” Finn says. “My dad’s been dead for like 18 years. If I had a sister, somebody would’ve said something before now.”

“Who would have said anything?” Alexis asks reasonably. “I was born after Christopher died, in January 1995. My mom called Carole at least once while she was pregnant. I don’t really know how many times.” 

“No, this is insane. If my mom knew, she would’ve said something,” Finn says. Puck reaches out and takes Finn’s hand gently. 

“She didn’t want you and I to meet, so why would she have?” Alexis says. “I have a few of her responses to my mom and then to my grandmother later.” 

Finn moves the phone away from his face as the ground sways under him. “I feel like I’m gonna be sick, maybe,” he whispers to Puck. 

“Sit down,” Puck says, pulling Finn over to a bench nearby and pushing on his shoulders until Finn sits. “Do you need me to take the phone?” Finn nods weakly and relinquishes the phone when Puck puts his hand on it. Puck lifts it up and starts talking. “Hey, this is Noah Puckerman, who’s this?” 

Finn closes his eyes and breathes deeply, trying to let the dizziness pass. Puck nods a few times at whatever Alexis is saying, then turns a little as he responds. He keeps conversing with her for what must be at least five minutes before Puck squats down in front of Finn. 

“You want this back?” Puck asks quietly, waving the phone. 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Finn says. 

“Do you want to see her, see what you think then?” Puck asks, covering the phone with his other hand. 

Finn shrugs. “I guess. I should. Shouldn’t I? That’s what I should do?”

“I know it’s not the same as with Jake,” Puck says, “but it can’t hurt, right?” 

“I guess,” Finn says. He sighs and holds his hand out. “Okay, give me the phone.” Puck nods and hands it back. “Hello again. It’s Finn.”

“Hi again,” Alexis says. “Your… friend? said you just needed a few moments. I guess I did lay a lot on you at once.” 

“Yeah. Jesus. Okay. So, what happens now? Do we, like, meet in person or something?” Finn asks. 

“I can probably answer more of your questions that way,” Alexis says. “Are you still in Lima? I can drive up on my off day. That’s Thursday.” 

“Yeah. Can I text you at this number? I could text you an address,” Finn says, “and I don’t mean to be a jerk or anything, but if you’ve got, I don’t know, pictures or something? Like some kind of proof you are who you say you are? Because this is all really crazy.”

“Yeah, I’ll bring what I have,” Alexis says. “Plus if your public Facebook photo looks at all like you, we kind of look alike.” 

“You found my Facebook?” 

“I had to wait until after I was eighteen to contact you, so I found out as much as I could.” She pauses. “Then I chickened out for a few months.”

“Oh damn, we’re really close together in age, aren’t we?” Finn asks. “Oh that’s so weird. This is so weird.”

“Sorry,” Alexis says, sounding like she almost means it. “Shit, I have to get back to work. Text me that address.” 

“Yeah, okay. Bye, I guess?” Finn says. 

“Bye!” Alexis says, then the line goes dead. 

“Jesus fucking Christ this is all really really messed up,” Finn says loudly, not necessarily directly _to_ Puck. 

Puck drops down on the bench beside Finn. “Pretty much,” he agrees. 

“My dad had another kid,” Finn says. “And my mom knew about it? This is crazy.”

“That’s the gist of the story as I understood it, yeah,” Puck says. “She seemed pretty sure.” 

“Oh man,” Finn says. He lets his phone drop onto the bench and puts both hands over his face. Puck wraps his arm around Finn’s shoulders and scoots a little closer, pulling Finn against his side. Finn leans against Puck for a few seconds before giving up and just full-on slumping against him, his head on Puck’s shoulder. 

Puck holds him silently for awhile, then squeezes Finn tighter before speaking. “What address are you going to text her?” 

“I don’t know,” Finn says, muffled by his hands over his face. “Do we want her to come to our apartment? I can’t tell her to go to my _mom’s_ house!”

“We can meet her at a restaurant or something if you want to,” Puck says. “Or the apartment. I’m good either way.”

“What if this is some kind of scam?” Finn asks. 

“Did she ask for money?”

“No,” Finn says. “But she might later, right?”

Puck’s shoulder shrugs. “Yeah, but until she does, it’s a weird scam.” 

“What if she wants, like, family heirlooms?”

“You have family heirlooms?” Puck asks incredulously. 

“No, but she doesn’t know that!” Finn says. 

“She can probably guess that’s a no, though,” Puck says. “What about Breadstix? We could meet her there. Or the Denny’s.” 

“Yeah, maybe we should start at a restaurant,” Finn says. “If it goes okay, she can come to the apartment.” He uncovers his face and sighs loudly. “Do I tell my mom about this? Or, god, do I _ask_ her about any of it?”

“She didn’t tell you about what happened to your dad until you were eighteen,” Puck points out. “Maybe hear this Alexis out and then work up a list of questions for your mom, depending on what you think of Alexis and her story?” 

“I don’t know what to do about all of this,” Finn says, turning his face against Puck’s neck. 

“You don’t have to do anything yet. I’ll text her for you, even,” Puck offers. “And there’s no point thinking about it until Thursday, right?” 

“I guess. I mean, we both know I’m gonna obsess over this until Thursday no matter what.”

Puck snorts. “Well, yeah, but if you forget to obsess for a couple of hours tomorrow, you don’t have to feel guilty. Ready to head back?” 

“Yeah. I think I want to lie down for a while,” Finn says. 

“Totally doable,” Puck says, standing and pulling Finn up with him, then steering him down the sidewalk towards the apartment without saying anything else as they walk. He unlocks the door and pushes it open. “Your bed awaits,” he says jokingly. 

Finn laughs a little, half-heartedly. “What about you? You working on anything?”

It’s _kind_ of a loaded question, in the sense that sometimes Puck comes over to Finn’s room for a while or Finn goes over to Puck’s and they fool around, but it’s not _too_ loaded, because it’s not something that happens all the time or every day, and it hasn’t turned into anything serious. Neither of them seem to feel any kind of urgency about it, and why should they? They have no reason to rush. Things can develop how they develop, or they can start a little and then stop if it doesn’t seem like that’s the right direction for them to go, and in the meantime, it’s fun. 

“Nothing that can’t wait,” Puck says as he pushes the door shut behind them. 

“Did you want to maybe…” Finn jerks his head towards his bedroom. “Help me forget to obsess or something?”

“Yeah,” Puck says, grinning at Finn and taking a step towards Finn’s bedroom. 

“Oh thank god,” Finn says. He loops his arm around Puck’s waist and pulls him into the bedroom with him. They don’t shut the door, because there’s no point. Finn uses the convenient arm around Puck’s waist to haul him close enough to kiss. Puck laughs against his lips, throwing his arm over Finn’s shoulders. Everything with Puck is so easy, no stress or worry, so Finn doesn’t mind if Puck laughs. He keeps kissing him anyway. 

Puck tugs Finn closer to his bed, their lips still connected. Finn lets Puck get them to the bed. He works on Puck’s belt buckle with one hand, and as soon as the belt is unbuckled, Puck’s stupid baggy jeans fall down. This time, Finn is the one laughing in the middle of the kiss. 

“You like that, huh?” Puck asks, barely moving his lips away to speak. 

“Just buy new jeans that fit better,” Finn says, still smiling. “I’ll buy them for you, I keep telling you.”

“Then you’d be sad it took more than just unbuckling.” 

Finn shrugs. “I’m not afraid of hard work.”

“Uh-huh,” Puck says, reaching for Finn’s waist. 

“I’m not,” Finn says. “And pants that fit better would look so good.” He reaches around to grab Puck’s ass and briefly thanks 14-year-old Puck for his decision to go commando and never look back. 

“Yeah, but usually I’m walking beside you, not in front of you,” Puck says as he pulls Finn’s zipper down. 

“Sometimes you walk faster than me because I’m thinking,” Finn says. 

“No thinking,” Puck says, flicking the button on Finn’s jeans open and then pushing his hand inside Finn’s boxers. Finn moans, then laughs at himself for being so easy.

“Not thinking now,” Finn says. He squeezes Puck’s ass. “See?”

“Good,” Puck says, tightening his hand around Finn’s dick and stroking up a few times before running his thumb over the tip. “Very good.” 

“Yeah, it is good,” Finn says, squeezing Puck’s ass one more time before letting it go and giving Puck a gentle shove onto the bed. Finn’s immediately on top of him, kissing him hard, more aggressive than their usual making out. Puck returns the kiss with equal force, the hand not on Finn’s dick landing on Finn’s hip and pulling down. Finn lets himself be pulled, and Puck’s hand ends up almost trapped between them, still wrapped around Finn’s dick, with Finn more or less fucking Puck’s hand. 

“Yeah, like that,” Puck says, almost like he’s coaxing Finn along. “Exactly like that.” 

“Shit, this is gonna be fast,” Finn admits, moving his hips quicker and thrusting harder into Puck’s hand. 

“I like it,” Puck says, tightening his fingers just slightly. 

“You like me to be easy.”

“Fast’s not the same as easy,” Puck says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s really arguing. 

“Mmhmm,” Finn says. He closes his eyes and kisses Puck again, rough this time, catching Puck’s lower lip between his teeth. He only has to thrust a few more times before he’s coming in Puck’s hand. After a few moments pass, Puck wiggles his hand out from between them, both of his hands settling just above Finn’s hips. 

“Might’ve been both, though,” Puck says. 

“Aw, shut up,” Finn says, eyes still closed. “You’re easy, too.”

“Never said otherwise,” Puck points out, rolling his hips up against Finn. Finn moves slightly off of Puck, enough that he can wrap his hand around Puck’s dick and start jerking him off with what Puck sometimes refers to as ‘rapid dedication’. 

“Easy’s good,” Finn says. “Fast’s good, too.”

“Fast ’n easy,” Puck says, then starts to say something else before he shakes his head slightly and moves his hips faster, pushing into Finn’s hand. 

“Hmm?” Finn slows his hand down slightly. “You need to say something else?”

“No,” Puck says, with a slight whine in his voice.

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says, moving his hand faster again. He presses his lips to Puck’s neck, licking and biting the spot right over his pulse. Puck lets out another low whine, then comes with a little bit of a shake before relaxing under Finn. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Puck says. “You?” 

“Mmhmm.”

“Good,” Puck says, squeezing Finn’s hips gently. 

Finn reaches across Puck and wipes his hands on the sheet. “You feel like taking a nap?”

“Nap’s good too,” Puck agrees. 

“Cool,” Finn says, and closes his eyes, head resting against Puck’s shoulder, his face almost pressed into Puck’s neck. 

Finn falls asleep pretty quickly, and the two of them must sleep for a long time, because when he opens his eyes, it’s dark out, and quiet, which means probably after 11. He rolls off of Puck to look for his jeans and retrieve his phone. Sure enough, 12:35. 

“Puck,” Finn whispers. “Hey, Puck.”

“Moonbeams,” Puck mutters. 

“You staying in here tonight?”

“Lasers.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says quietly. “Night.”

He lies back down next to Puck and snuggles in a little to get comfortable. Now that he’s awake, he’s not really tired anymore, and he realizes he never sent Alexis the address. Puck is still dead to the world, and she’s—maybe, supposedly, allegedly—Finn’s sister, so he makes the executive decision that Breadstix is way too big a deal and that Denny’s is much lower key, so he looks up the Denny’s address and texts it to the number Alexis called him from. He can’t make himself add her to his contacts. Not yet. 

A sister. His dad’s other kid. Finn can’t quite make that stick. Of all the things his mom ever said about his dad, which admittedly were only the good things until his senior year of high school, nothing she ever told him made him believe his dad had another kid, or _would_ have another kid, or would ever be in a situation where he could have had another kid. Christopher was an addict, but Finn’s mom never said he was a cheater. Still, if what Alexis claims is true, then not only was Christopher a cheater, but Carole knew and didn’t tell Finn anything, not even that he had a sister out there somewhere. 

“This is all so messed up,” Finn says to himself. “So very, very messed up.”

Puck shifts in his sleep, rolling even closer to Finn.“Smithereens.” 

Finn laughs quietly. “You are the weirdest sleeper I ever met,” he tells Puck. He makes himself put the phone down and close his eyes again, and just concentrate on Puck next to and slightly underneath him. Puck smells good, and he’s warm, and he’s safe and good, and after that, Finn doesn’t really have that hard a time falling back to sleep.


	2. The Carole Letters

Some weeks fly and some weeks drag. This particular week drags like the busted back end of the Lincoln that came into Burt’s shop once after a refrigerator had fallen onto it from the back of a moving truck going the opposite direction down Elida. Bumper-scraping-the-ground level dragging. Finn spends Wednesday night on the verge of what Puck calls ‘an ugly, goldfish-face panic attack’ and what Finn thinks might actually be the first in a long line of mini heart attacks that will eventually lead up to a giant heart attack and kill him where he stands. So there’s that.

By Thursday morning, Finn isn’t exactly calmer, but he’s passed out of goldfish territory, at least, so if he’s going to be anxiety-riddled for the day, at least it’s not in an incredibly unattractive way. He settles for some light hyperventilating and heavy pacing, interspersed with a morning class and a half-ass attempt at eating some lunch with Puck.

After Finn spends nearly twenty minutes picking at a turkey club sandwich, Puck declares, “You’ve murdered the sandwich enough, now.” 

Finn looks up at Puck and smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. I guess I don’t have an appetite, really.”

“You want to go ahead, be early?” Puck asks. “We can do that.” 

“Yeah, but we’d be _really_ early if we went right now,” Finn says. 

“So we’ll drive around,” Puck says. “You needed to get a kids’ book for that project for your education class, right? We’ll go do that, then go to Denny’s.” 

“Yeah, okay, that sounds like something we could do,” Finn says, giving up any semblance of eating his sandwich and draping a napkin over the whole picked-apart deal. “More fun than sitting around here trying to not look like a goldfish.”

“There’s got to be some other kind of fish to try for,” Puck says as he stands up. “I know. Rainbow fish. You should get that book and do your project on why it’s a horrible story.” 

“I was going to look for one with dogs in it.” Finn takes his tray to the trash and dumps it. He feels kind of bad for wasting the food, but it’s been too picked at by this point to really give to anyone else, and he doubts it would survive even the short trip back to their apartment in the sorry shape it was in. 

“Dog books are sad. _Old Yeller_ , _Sounder_ , that one with the hunting dogs…” Puck trails off and shakes his head. 

“Yeah, but what about _Harry the Dirty Dog_?” Finn says. “That’s a happy book. He goes back home at the end.”

“Does it have to have words? There’s always _Good Dog, Carl_ , I guess,” Puck says as they walk outside. 

“Well, crap. _Are_ there any dog books without pictures that aren’t sad?” Finn asks. 

“Probably. Probably some kind of series or something, like horse books,” Puck says. 

“Or cats. There’s that whole long series about cats.”

“I don’t understand that one. Most cats just sleep!” 

“Well, these ones do battle,” Finn says. “That’s just their deal. They’re battling cats.”

“I hope there’s not an audiobook,” Puck says. “Can you imagine? Catfights.” 

“Oh god, the sound effects!” Finn winces as he shakes his head. 

Puck steers them straight to the parking lot, bypassing the apartment entirely. “Does it have to be about animals at all for the project?” 

“No. I just like animal books,” Finn says. 

“Maybe there’s one about a whale.” 

“Why a whale, though?” 

They reach Puck’s jeep, and Finn gets into the passenger side. Puck backs out of his spot and heads towards Harding, taking a right when they reach it. “They’re smart, apparently,” Puck says. “Like, way smarter than pigs, even.” 

“Pigs!” Finn says. “I could do _Charlotte’s Web_! Though, that has a sad ending, too.”

“It’s like, happy-sad,” Puck says. “You could play up the good parts.” 

“But she doesn’t ever get to know her babies,” Finn says. He sighs loudly. “Like my dad, I guess.”

“That was talented,” Puck says admiringly. “You brought it up in a different way.” They stop at a red light and Puck squeezes Finn’s leg. “Should I just head up to the Denny’s and we can start drinking coffee?” 

“I don’t like coffee.”

“You might today.” 

“I haven’t any day before this one.”

“Well, you can suffer even more while waiting?” Puck suggests. 

“Ugh,” Finn says. “It’s like you got worse since you’ve been in college. It’s like you’re majoring in being the worst.”

“I don’t know, you seem to like it.” 

“That is _not_ what I like.”

“Uh-huh,” Puck says. “I just call it how I view it, is all I’m saying.” 

“You probably need to go to the eye doctor, then, because your view is messed up,” Finn says. 

“Oh my god, did they teach you that in a middle school education course? Connecting with students?” Puck says, laughing. “That’s amazing. Amazingly bad.” 

“Your driving is amazingly bad. I think we’ve been around this part of town three times. You’re driving in a circle.”

“I know exactly where I’m going,” Puck says. “I also know you don’t like coffee.” 

“Is where you’re going only reached by circling it three times? Is it a magical land?” Finn asks. 

“Dog-land. Soon, I’ll lie down, and we’ll be magically transported to Denny’s.” 

“It’s the goblin kingdom,” Finn says, then perks up at one of his first truly positive thoughts about the whole sibling situation. “Hey! I finally have somebody I can give away to the goblin king!”

Puck laughs and makes a right instead of the left turn he’d been making at that particular intersection. “I’d totally give Jake to the goblin king.” 

“I like Jake. Maybe we can just trade.”

“You and Jake _really_ don’t look alike,” Puck points out. 

“Me and this mythical Alexis might not look alike, either,” Finn says. “She could be a redhead. She could be half-Chinese. She could be _short_.”

“She could be all three of those, but it’s unlikely,” Puck says. He pulls into the Denny’s lot and parks. “I think she must be lonely.” 

“Dude, anybody can be a redhead,” Finn says, ignoring the ‘lonely’ part, because until he finds out more about Alexis, he’s trying to focus on _not_ worrying about how much all of this must have sucked for her. He gets to have the full three days to think about how it sucks for him, and then after he meets her, it can be her turn. 

“Can be, yes. Likely, no,” Puck says. “Anyway, just being a redhead wouldn’t mean she didn’t look like you.” He turns to Finn and studies him. “You could pull it off.” 

“Is that a compliment?”

“If you like redheads, I guess?” 

Finn shrugs. “I don’t have strong redhead sentiments.”

“Well, you could try it for Halloween or something,” Puck says, climbing out and walking around to Finn’s side. 

“Or I could not try it,” Finn says. He opens the door and gets out of the jeep. “Do you just desperately want me to be redheaded? Do you have a secret redhead thing? Are you going to run off with my redheaded maybe-half-sister?”

“No, I’m holding out to run off with Carrot Top,” Puck says. 

Finn scrunches up his face. “Gross.”

“I know, right?” Puck says, laughing. He takes Finn’s hand and steers them towards the door of the Denny’s. “I mean, if you were going to dye your hair, red’d be better than jet black.” 

“If I had jet black hair, I’d look like Superman, and it would be awesome,” Finn says. “You’re just trying to get in the way of me living up to my awesome potential.”

“You don’t look like Christopher Reeve,” Puck says. “Or wear glasses.” 

“Superman doesn’t wear glasses, Puck. Clark Kent wears glasses.”

“Can’t have one without the other,” Puck says cheerfully, opening the door at the Denny’s and telling the hostess that they need a table for three. 

“Superman doesn’t need the glasses, though. I could get some fake glasses just as easy as Superman did,” Finn insists. “They sell them in the bookstore. They sell them at the Rite Aid. I can order them on Amazon. If the only thing standing between me and being Superman is glasses, then you’d better start thinking about what you want your sidekick name to be.”

“You know, Superman was Jewish,” Puck says blandly as they sit. “Two coffees,” he says to the server, who nods. 

“To be Superman, I’d convert.”

“Gotta drink coffee to convert,” Puck says.

“That is _not_ a rule of being Jewish,” Finn says. 

“It totally is. Nana always said, the only person who needs more coffee than Jews on a Saturday morning is the rabbi himself.” 

“I don’t think they even had coffee trees in Israel,” Finn says. “I think they take a tropical climate.”

“There are Ethiopian Jews, Finn,” Puck says, sounding mock-affronted. 

“There are lying Jews who are sitting at the table with me, too,” Finn says. “Hey, what if Alexis is Jewish?”

“Mazel tov,” Puck says. “She could be.” 

“I know, because of her mom. Then you guys would have something to talk about, and you won’t be bored sitting through my family drama. Theoretical family drama. Real drama, theoretical family.”

“Do I look bored right now?” 

“The lack of fun hasn’t started yet. Right now you’re just here with me, and you always have fun with me. I’m the most fun person you know,” Finn says. 

“Especially when you drink coffee and make faces,” Puck says as two cups of coffee are placed on the table. 

“Do I have to drink that?” Finn asks. 

“Well, yeah, I ordered it for you.” 

“Give me three reasons why I have drink it.”

“I ordered it for you, I’m sitting across from you, I think you should,” Puck recites. 

“You didn’t have to order it for me, I could sit next to you, and so?” Finn says. 

“So, I’m smarter than you, about coffee.” 

“You’re smarter than me about a lot of stuff, man, but that doesn’t mean I listen to what you tell me to do half the time.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe your life would improve vastly.” 

“Or the one time I do listen to you about something you’re not smarter than me about, I get arrested and you have to visit me at the Allen County Jail.”

“I’m not going to let you get arrested,” Puck promises. “Like, ever.” 

“Fine,” Finn says, picking up the cup of coffee and taking a sip. He grimaces and puts it down. “Jail might be better.”

“They serve coffee in jail.” 

“Maybe if I add some sugar,” Finn says, picking up a handful of sugar packets. He rips one open at a time, dumping it into his coffee before moving on to the next, until he has about five packets of sugar in his coffee. He takes another sip and grimaces again. 

“You look like your tongue’s trying to re-enact the old Aerosmith video with Liv Tyler,” Puck says. “How do you do that?” 

“Nastiness,” Finn says. 

“But you’re drinking it,” Puck says, sounding pleased. “And eventually you’ll—” Puck cuts off mid-sentence. 

“I’ll what?” Finn asks. 

“My god, that girl that just walked in looks like you,” Puck says quietly. 

“Oh shit,” Finn says, snapping his head around to look at the entrance. The girl talking to the hostess is tall, sure, but otherwise, Finn isn’t sure she actually looks like him. He shakes his head. “I don’t see it.”

“I don’t actually see it when people say Jake and I look alike,” Puck admits. “I’d bet you anything that’s her, though.” 

“But Jake does look like you, only black-Jewish instead of white-Jewish,” Finn says, “but that girl could be anybody.”

“‘Anybody’ is pointing at our table and walking over here,” Puck says. 

“Oh, well, shit, then,” Finn says. He looks back at Puck frantically. “What do I do?”

“Drink some coffee,” Puck says. “I’ll do introductions or something.” He pushes Finn’s coffee towards him and stands up. “Alexis?” 

“Alexys with a y,” the same voice from the phone call says, before the girl appears in Finn’s line of sight. “Noah, right?” 

“I usually— yeah, that works,” Puck says, kicking out one of the other chairs. “This is Finn. Finn, I’ve mentally been spelling Alexys’s name wrong.” 

“Uh. Yeah, me too, sorry,” Finn says, standing up and holding out his hand towards Alexys—with a y—like some kind of high school assistant football coach at a football coaches conference. “Hi. I’m Finn. Hudson. You already knew that part.”

Alexys takes Finn’s hand and then freezes, staring at him. “I…” She clears her throat and starts again. “I kept thinking about what I’d do when I finally met you, for years,” she says. “It’s just surreal you’re actually here.” 

Finn still has Alexys’s hand in his, and even though she isn’t really contributing to the shaking, he just keeps on football-coach–shaking it. “I don’t think I’ve had enough time for it to be surreal. It’s just still in plain old weird territory. You’re really tall.”

“Sit down,” Puck says to Alexys. “And you’re really tall, Finn, we know that.” 

“Sorry,” Alexys says, dropping down into the chair and pulling her hand back from Finn. “Sorry, I just always kept hoping…” 

“Sit!” Puck hisses at Finn, nudging his shin. 

Finn sits so immediately that his butt makes a smacking noise against the seat when he plops into it. “I’m sorry it’s in a Denny’s,” he says to Alexys. “This is so weird. I mean, you don’t seem weird. You seem tall.”

“Oh, you’re both weird,” Puck says. “It’s a good thing I came, or neither of you would actually talk about anything.” 

“What are you, exactly?” Alexys asks Puck. “Friend? Boyfriend? Personal attorney?” 

“He’s Puck. Noah Puckerman. Called Puck,” Finn says. 

“I know that, we talked,” Alexys says. Puck shrugs. “Okay, we’ll come back to that. What do you want to know?” 

“Just… how did this happen? Why did this happen?” Finn says. “Why didn’t I know?”

“My mom told me all about you,” Alexys says, looking sort of wistful. “My big brother who lived north of us. When I was three, I thought that meant you knew all the mall Santa Clauses. Then I thought maybe you were in Canada.” She shrugs. “The only reason I know about you is my mom, and I’m pretty sure the reason you didn’t know about me is _your_ mom.” 

“Are you _sure_ my mom knew?” Finn asks. 

“I have some of the letters she sent my mom. Well, that she sent back, I should say,” Alexys says. “And my grandmother, after mom died.” 

“Maybe it was a different Carole Hudson,” Finn says. “What did the letters she sent say? Did she explain why she didn’t tell me? Did she maybe just not believe your mom?”

“Your mom _died_?” Puck interjects. “That sucks.” 

Alexys shrugs uncomfortably. “Thanks, I guess. Uh, I _have_ the letters,” she says, reaching into her bag and pulling out a stack of old mail. She flips through it and pulls one out. “Is that your mom’s writing?” she asks, showing the front to Finn. 

Finn sighs. It is his mom’s writing, so the ‘different Carole Hudson’ argument went right out the window pretty aggressively. “Yeah,” Finn admits. “That’s Mom’s handwriting. God, Alexys, I’m sorry about your mother. I’m sorry about all of this.”

“Mom… I miss her, but she made her choices, I guess,” Alexys says. “This is weirder than I thought. I guess part of me hoped somehow you’d both know about me and disagree with Carole, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense.” She puts the stack of mail on the table. “Maybe you should look at a couple of these. Otherwise it feels like I’m back in preschool, tattling.” 

Finn glances at Puck before putting his hand on top of the letters. “Maybe you guys can talk while I read?”

“You sure? I might tell her stories about you,” Puck says with a small smile. 

“Like you wouldn’t do that anyway?” Finn says. 

“Eventually, sure,” Puck says. “That’s part of the job.” 

“Which job is that?” Alexys asks, looking mystified, and then shakes her head. “I’ll figure it out eventually.” 

Satisfied that Puck has this handled, Finn picks up the letter with the earliest postmark, takes it out of its envelope, and starts to read.

_Ms. Miller,_

_I find your letter in extremely poor taste. It could be argued that you, along with your friends, bear some responsibility for Christopher’s death, and now you write with a request for money. You say you’re pregnant with Christopher’s child, have the audacity to call your baby my son’s_ sibling _, all without proof, and then admit to still using drugs yourself, while pregnant? I’m afraid that even if there were proof, I would not consent to using any of Christopher’s legacy towards what would probably be a failed attempt at rehab._

 _Carole Hudson_

Finn can’t deny the handwriting is Carole’s, and even though the tone isn’t one he’s heard very often, the word choice is still undeniably his mom’s. Alexys’s mom must have written for help getting rehab, and Carole said no. For some reason, Carole wouldn’t help Finn’s probably-sister’s mother stop using the drugs that killed their probably-same dad. He braces himself a little before picking up the next envelope in the stack. 

_Ms. Miller,_

_Manners require that I do congratulate you on the birth of your daughter. I do not have an interest in having my son meet her, despite your continued claims of shared paternity. Babies often look like whomever we want them to look like, and the photo you sent was slightly blurry. I have returned it to you in this envelope._

_Carole_

The photograph enclosed with the letter is most decidedly _not_ blurry, and Finn can’t help the “oh _shit_!” he mutters when he sees it. It looks like him. The baby in the wallet-sized picture looks just like him. If he didn’t know the picture was meant to be of Alexys, he would have assumed Carole sent Alexys’s mom a picture of him, that’s how much her baby picture looks like his. 

Puck reaches across the table and plucks the picture from Finn’s hand, turning it towards him. “Your mom and Alexys’s exchanged baby pics? Carole sent one of you?” he asks. 

“No, dude,” Finn says. “This is Alexys. Right?” He looks to Alexys for confirmation. She nods. 

“Man, that’s freaky,” Puck says, looking from the picture to Alexys, then back to the picture before looking at Finn. “Well, I’m convinced even more, now.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He takes the next envelope from the pile. 

_Ms. Miller,_

_While I appreciate that you and your daughter have fallen on difficult times, I do not have recommendations for employers in the area near myself and my son. I would prefer that you did not explore relocating to Allen County in general or Lima specifically. I understand that you feel it would help you continue to stay sober, but I do not think it’s in my son’s best interests to have you nearby._

_Carole_

Finn slams the letter down onto the table, making Puck and Alexys jump. “How do you not hate me?” Finn asks Alexys. “I hate me just from reading this!” 

“Grandma used to remind me you weren’t really old enough to know much more than I did,” Alexys says. “For awhile I did hate you, a few years ago. Then I reread them a few more times and figured, well, this woman was willing to be like that because she thought you were that special, so maybe you were.” Alexys ducks her head, looking embarrassed. “I needed something to hold out hope for.” 

“Sorry to disappoint,” Finn says, shrugging. 

“Didn’t say you did, but this one says you don’t actually drink coffee, so I may have to hold that against you.” 

Finn picks up his room-temperature half-a-cup of coffee and takes a big sip of it while making aggressive eye contact with Puck, all without grimacing. He sets the cup down again and says, “I have no idea what he told you, but he has a reputation for making things up.”

Puck snorts. “Don’t listen to him, he’s been listening to _Book of Mormon_ in secret.” 

“It’s not ‘in secret’ if I have it playing on my phone while I do the dishes,” Finn says. 

“At home is close enough to in secret,” Puck says, shrugging and turning back to Alexys. 

Finn looks back down at the letters. He can imagine that the next few in immediate succession are more of the same, but there’s a time jump in 2002, a gap of slightly over a year, with the next letter not postmarked until 2003, and this time with the return address in a different name, Deborah Miller. 

_Ms. Miller,_

_I am sincerely sorry for your loss, and for the loss your granddaughter has suffered. The scourge of illegal drugs taking another life is a true tragedy. However, I do not think it would be appropriate in any way for my son to meet your granddaughter, even in light of these events. I’m sure you understand the need to shield children from uncertain or unsavory corners of life._

_Carole Hudson_

“Oh for crying out loud!” Finn says, shaking the letter. 

“You can tell he’s really upset when he starts sounding like he lives in the post-World War II ’40s,” Puck says. “Nothing is ever swell.” 

“This is definitely _not_ swell,” Finn says. He slams the letter down to keep himself from crumpling it. “This is all _bullshit_. Sorry, Alexys, but it’s definitely bullshit.”

Alexys looks at the letter Finn slammed down, then at Finn’s face and over at Puck for a few seconds before looking back at Finn. “No,” she says. “Not disappointing at all.” 

Puck nods. “You’re right. He never is.”


	3. Adaptation in Action

Finn takes more time with the hand dryer than he typically would, but nothing about the afternoon has exactly been typical, and he could use the extra time to think over those letters… well, more like time to get over the sick feeling from reading through that stack of cold, dismissive, and downright mean stuff his mother wrote to Alexys’s mom and grandmother. When he gets back to the table, Alexys isn’t there, but the food is, so he sits down next to a pleased-looking Puck again, in front of the serving plates of veggies with dip, fruit salad, seasoned fries, nachos, chicken strips, and mozzarella sticks. If nothing else, nobody’s going home hungry.

“Did Alexys _leave_?” Finn asks Puck, suddenly processing that, as dramatic as this must be for him, it’s probably both dramatic _and_ dredging up a lot of bad and gross memories for Alexys. 

“Nah, she fled to the bathroom, too,” Puck says. He pushes the veggies towards Finn. “Vitamins first.” 

Finn starts to eat a piece of broccoli with about as much gusto as he can really muster, given the situation and the fact that what he’d really like to eat is the entire basket of mozzarella sticks. “Did she seem okay to you?” he asks Puck, in between florets. “This is probably just as bad for her as for me, right?” 

“Different bad, I think,” Puck says, shrugging a little. “The reality of you is new, but she had more facts leading into this meeting.” 

“I think I’m a kind of sucky reality.”

“I don’t think she was expecting a genius or a D1 ball player, doofus.” 

“You don’t know,” Finn insists. “She might’ve been!”

“She looked you up on Facebook, remember?” Puck says. 

“Some geniuses are very private,” Finn says. 

“Source?” 

“Wikipedia.”

Puck tilts his head to the right and raises his right eyebrow, both index fingers pointed at Finn. 

“Stop giving me the ‘I know you don’t read Wikipedia’ face!” Finn says. “I read it sometimes.”

“Using it as a substitute for IMDB doesn’t count.” 

“Sometimes I use it to looks up cities.”

“You still never looked up genius. Point, game, match.” 

“Hmph,” Finn says, cramming an entire carrot stick into his mouth in protest of Puck’s correct assessment of his Wikipedia usage. 

Alexys drops back into her chair with a thump, then immediately pulls the basket of mozzarella sticks towards her. Finn eats a second carrot stick while giving Puck a pointed look of irritation. 

“I have you, plus two younger siblings,” Puck says, clearly deliberately misconstruing Finn’s look. “If you want her to eat more vegetables, that’s on you.” 

“I eat enough vegetables,” Finn says. 

“Thanks to me,” Puck says, grinning and picking up a chicken tender. 

“I hate most vegetables,” Alexys says. “Especially frozen ones.” 

“Carrots are okay,” Finn says, pushing the veggie plate across the table to Alexys, carrots first. 

“You’re going to make me eat vegetables, aren’t you?” Alexys says with a sigh. 

“As does Puck, so does me,” Finn says, giving the veggie plate a tiny additional push towards Alexys. “Also, I need at least two of those mozzarella sticks.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, sighing again. “Fine. And I guess if you have more questions, shoot.” 

Finn plucks a mozzarella stick from the basket. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Mom managed that.” 

“You still live with your grandma?” Finn asks. 

“Oh, uh, no,” Alexys says. “She died about four years after Mom did.” 

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” Finn says. “But, who do you live with now, though?”

“Some roommates,” Alexys says, a little cagily. “Before I turned eighteen, I was in the system.” 

“The system? Like, the _foster_ system?” Finn asks, frowning. 

“Yeah, good ol’ Hamilton County JFS,” Alexys says. 

“Do you think my mom knew that?” Finn asks. “I mean, she wouldn’t have just left you in foster care if she knew, even if she was mad about stuff.”

“I…” Alexys picks up the carrot closest to her and takes a large bite. 

“Finn,” Puck says softly. “Why wouldn’t she have?” 

“Because Alexys didn’t have anybody else! And it’s not her fault my dad is her dad!” Finn says. 

“But what would have made Carole change?” Puck asks. 

“I don’t know!” Finn says, a little loudly for a Denny’s on a Thursday afternoon. “Because it was one thing when Alexys at least had other family, but then she didn’t, and the only other family she had was _me_ , so somebody should have made sure she was _with_ me!” He looks at Alexys. “Somebody _should_ have made sure you were with me.”

Alexys finishes chewing and swallows. “They asked me if I had any other relatives. You were a minor at the time. You were only fourteen! I sent Carole a letter. The caseworker at JFS told me that they called her.” She shrugs. “Maybe they didn’t, but it’s easier to place a kid with a relative or someone known than it is to place a preteen in the foster system.” 

“This is all bullshit!” Finn says, smacking the table, which makes a few untouched cauliflower florets bounce off their platter. “Not your part. The rest of it. The adults. The stupid, selfish, terrible adults!”

“It wasn’t fun,” Alexys admits. “I know it’s a weird, fucked-up situation. And I didn’t want to contact you just to share that.” 

“I wish you had, though. I would’ve found a way to make Mom do something. I’m sorry this happened to you,” Finn says. 

“I appreciate that,” Alexys says quietly. “I’d like to think you could have made a difference, but I never counted on that idea.” 

“This is so messed up,” Finn says, shaking his head. His mom is definitely messed up, too, to let this happen to Alexys. 

“Families are weird,” Puck says. “It’s a thing.” 

“I think this goes a little past weird,” Finn says. 

“Sure, but you never know what other families have going on,” Puck says. 

“And despite my fantasies at age twelve, they don’t let people who are barely eighteen swoop down and take foster kids,” Alexys says with a slight smile. 

“I would’ve tried, though,” Finn says. 

“Could’ve hired a lawyer,” Puck says, “but it would have been a little weird, having a ward and doing senior year at the same time.” 

“Like Batman,” Finn says. “If he was in high school.”

“High school Batman,” Puck says, shaking his head. 

“Anyway, yeah. Foster system until eighteen,” Alexys says. “It wasn’t a picnic. Uh, other questions?” 

“Do you like it in Cincinnati?” Finn asks. 

“Uh, I guess? It’s the only place I’ve ever lived.” 

“Are your roommates nice?”

“Yeah,” Alexys says, looking a little uneasy again. “I mean, it’s a good set-up.” 

Finn glances over at Puck, who definitely has his ‘something here is not exactly like we’re being told it is’ face, which, come to think about it, Finn has seen with surprising frequency in the past few years. 

“You should hear Finn’s stories about his roommate,” Puck says blandly. Finn smacks the back of his hand against Puck’s arm. 

“Hey!” Finn protests. 

“Not me, the one before me,” Puck says. “Or during high school, if Kurt counts as a roommate.” 

“Kurt was an okay roommate, mostly. Eventually.”

“Kurt?” Alexys says. 

“My step-brother,” Finn says. “It was kind of weird for a while.”

“Oh, wow,” Alexys says. “Older or younger?” 

“Uh. Same, more or less?” Finn says. 

“Technically Kurt’s older, but we were all in the same class,” Puck says. “Kurt’s in New York City now. You follow politics at all?” 

“Uh, a little?” 

“Congressman Hummel, that’s Finn’s stepdad.” 

“Oh, I mean, I know who the president is,” Alexys says. “Sorry.” 

“Anyway, when my mom and Burt first started dating, Kurt had kind of a, you know,” Finn makes a face, “ _thing_ for me, I guess.”

“A… oh. Oh,” Alexys says. “Uh, was that… a problem?” 

“Yeah.”

“Like, uh,” Alexys starts, then seems to stall out. 

“Not categorically,” Puck says quickly. “Just one-sided.” 

“And he was kind of a creeper about it, too,” Finn says. “There was… decorating.”

“I never did see the decorating,” Puck says, looking almost wistful. 

“Oh, well, uh, okay,” Alexys says, nodding a little. “So what else do you want to know? Anything I should know?” 

“Um. I go to college?” Finn offers. “No weird food allergies or anything. I don’t think I have any family medical history stuff you should know, except the obvious thing about my— _our_ —dad.”

“Do you sing?” Puck asks. 

“Sing?” Alexys repeats. “Uh, in the shower sometimes.” 

“Do you play any instruments?” Finn asks. 

Alexys shakes her head, fighting a smile. “Not really many chances for that. Grandma had an old violin, but she didn’t know how to play it.” 

“Do you still have it?” Finn asks. 

“No,” Alexys says. “I kept thinking about buying one cheap, but cheap for a violin still isn’t cheap.” 

“Oh,” Finn says. “That’s too bad. God, this is all so messed up. I’m so sorry, Alexys.”

“There’s a lot of things I guess I’d change, but I haven’t figured out how to go back in time, yet,” Alexys says. 

“I like the use of ‘yet’,” Puck says approvingly. 

Finn eats another mozzerella stick, chewing it as he watches Alexys. “You could stick around for a couple of days, if you wanted,” Finn says finally. 

“You’re not in a dorm?” Alexys asks. 

Finn shakes his head. “We have an apartment. You could stay in my room, if you wanted, and I could sleep,” he looks at Puck, “else… where.”

“I can take a sofa or whatever,” Alexys says, looking between Puck and Finn. 

“There’s room for everyone in a bed,” Puck says. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Just like Puck says.”

“If you’re sure,” Alexys says. “It’d probably be more organic that way or something, than staying here for hours.” 

“We could get some food to go, for later,” Finn says. 

“I’m good at ordering food,” Puck says, looking pleased again. “We can do that.” 

“Yeah. Okay. We’ll do that. Food, then our place,” Finn says. “Do you have a toothbrush? We can go buy you a toothbrush.”

“Most people don’t travel with a toothbrush,” Puck says. “We can get her a toothbrush and if she needs different shampoo than us.”

“Do I look that high maintenance?” Alexys asks. 

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “She doesn’t, but I wanted to make sure we were good hosts.” 

“Yeah, but that sounds like one of those trick questions, you know? Like if I say no, it’s like I’m saying she doesn’t try hard to take care of herself or something,” Finn says. He turns towards Alexys. “You look like you try perfectly hard, but probably not annoyingly hard.”

Alexys laughs. “You’re great hosts.” 

“You two go outside, and Finn can give you directions,” Puck says. “I’ll settle up and get some to-go boxes for the nachos.” 

“Okay,” Finn says, then he and Alexys head towards the door. Standing side by side, she’s not as tall as he is, but she’s probably the girl-height version of Finn’s height. Once they’re outside, he gives Alexys his address and simple directions for getting to the apartment, though really, she’s probably better off following them than relying on Finn’s verbal directions, since Puck likes to make fun of him for using “irrelevant landmarks” like “where the Ralphs used to be” or “past that place where we saw that clown getting arrested that time.”

Puck comes out after a few minutes, throwing one arm over Finn’s shoulders from behind. “Okay, to the CVS first?” 

“Yeah, but then you should probably follow us, Alexys,” Finn says to her, before turning back to Puck. “I mean, I gave her directions, but you know.”

“Irrelevant landmarks?” Puck asks. 

“It’s entirely possible,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “It’s part of the charm.” It’s not entirely clear if Puck means small-town charm or Finn’s charm, but he doesn’t clarify, instead steering Finn towards the jeep and nudging him towards the passenger side door. 

“I’ll plug the CVS in on my phone, too,” Alexys says, heading for her car, an older, somewhat beat-up looking Saturn. 

Finn buckles himself into his seat and sighs loudly. “This is all so weird and messed-up feeling.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Puck agrees. “ _She_ is pretty cool, at least.” 

“Yeah, I like her, but I just can’t believe my mom,” Finn says. “How could she do that? How could she act like that? How could she leave my _sister_ in _foster care_?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I could make some guesses and even try to make some excuses, but I don’t really know.” Puck checks the rearview mirror for Alexys and then pulls out of the lot. “What do _you_ think is up with the roommate thing?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s obviously something shady,” Finn says. “She keeps making shifty-eyes about it. Maybe they’re jerks and she doesn’t want us to worry.”

“Maybe. Or they’re gay dudes, and she thinks we’re homophobic.” 

“I don’t want her to think that!” Finn says. 

“Come on, it’s kind of funny,” Puck says, putting his hand on Finn’s thigh and winking at him. “Just make sure she realizes I’m not making you sleep on that short-ass sofa.” 

“What if _she’s_ homophobic?” 

“Then we tell her to drive back to Cincinnati,” Puck says. “Better to know now than later, even if a long-lost sibling is overall a cool development.” 

“I hope she’s not,” Finn says. “Maybe I should’ve…” He sighs, because the whole Puck thing is kind of difficult to explain in that it’s difficult to define, so he’s not really sure exactly _what_ he should’ve told Alexys about him and Puck. 

“Some things aren’t the first topic of conversation at the Denny’s.” 

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“She’ll figure it out, one way or another,” Puck says, pulling into the CVS parking lot. “Anything else we should make sure she knows?” 

“I don’t know. Do we tell her the sordid history of Lima, Ohio, or do we keep all our drama a secret?” Finn asks. 

“Guess it depends on if she seems like she needs a laugh, or she’d be reassured, or she’d be freaked out,” Puck says as he parks. “It was sort of like prep work for finding out you had a sister, when you think about it.” 

“I guess,” Finn says. 

“Prep work, not total preparation. You think she needs us to watch her buy a toothbrush?” 

“I think that would be super uncomfortable for all three of us.”

“Especially if you or I turned out to have opinions on dental hygiene.” Puck puts on the parking brake and turns towards Finn. “You didn’t invite her to stay just because you felt bad, right? Like you really want to get to know her, too?” 

“Can it be both? I feel like it’s both,” Finn says. “I feel bad, but I also want to get to know her.”

“Both’s fine. Both’s good, even,” Puck says. “We can break out a board game or something, even.” 

“You learn a lot about someone by playing _Life_ with them,” Finn says. 

“But is it the kind of information that you _want_ to learn about your newly–discovered half-sister?” 

“We should probably know how cutthroat she is, just in case.”

“So you want to follow up with a game of _Monopoly_?” 

“Wouldn’t you rather know now?” Finn asks. 

“Sure, I need to know if I want to go into business with the two of you,” Puck says, laughing. “Cutthroat business woman, your brains, we’d be the whole package.” 

“Puckerman, Hudson, and Hudson, Incorporated,” Finn says, then a thought occurs to him. “Oh, shit. Is her last name actually Hudson? Like, if my dad was dead, and her mom wasn’t married to him and all of that, is she for real a Hudson? Or are we going to have to be Puckerman, Hudson, and Miller, Inc.?”

“No clue,” Puck admits. “Jake’s for real a Puckerman, but I don’t know how that worked. We could be FAN.” 

“FAN?”

“Finn Alexys Noah?” 

“That sounds like a line of hair products that Kurt would buy,” Finn says. 

“I bet there’s nothing more cutthroat than fashion,” Puck says. “There she is, with a toothbrush and everything. Your job as an older sibling has already been made easier, since she knows basic adult things.” 

“I wonder if she has to use soft bristles like me,” Finn says. “That seems like something genetic, right?”

“We’ll ask her if she has sensitive gums,” Puck promises. “Any other questions you want me to make note of?” 

“I don’t know. I just want to know her. I want to know all the stuff I missed, if there’s stuff she knows about my dad that I don’t know,” Finn says. 

“Favorite movie,” Puck says. “Favorite television series. That kind of stuff?” 

“Music. Favorite bands, favorite song. That’s important stuff,” Finn says. “Foods she likes. I just want to know how much we’ve got in common, I guess.”

Puck nods, grinning a little as he restarts the jeep to pull out of the CVS lot. “Yeah, makes sense.”

“So…” Finn says. “Am I crashing in your room for a couple of nights, then?”

Puck’s grin gets wider as he nods again. “I can’t promise I won’t talk in my sleep.” 

Finn snorts. “Yeah, I already know you talk in your sleep. I just mean… it’s not the usual deal. It’s not a most-of-the-time thing. It’s usually, you know, whatever, and then back to our own rooms. We don’t plan the sleeping over part in advance, even when it does happen.”

“Yeah, well,” Puck says, pausing as he pulls out of the lot and checks to be sure Alexys is behind them. “Everything adapts when the time is right, right?” 

“That’s us. Adaptation in action, dude,” Finn says. 

“Darwin would be so proud.”


	4. The Hudson Side

“I vote for playing _Life_ , then _Clue_ , and the big granddaddy of them all only after that,” Puck announces almost as soon as they're in the apartment and the door shuts behind the three of them.

“Sure,” Finn says. _Clue_ isn’t one of the games they discussed in the car, but Puck _has_ always said that he can tell a lot about a person by which details they obsess over and how quickly they jump to an accusation. In that sense, _Clue_ is kind of the perfect get-to-know-Alexys game. 

“I get to be Miss Scarlet,” Alexys says. “You seriously have multiple board games?” 

“Sure,” Puck says, already in the closet and pulling down _Life_. 

“We used to go out more, but it’s hard to keep our grades good and get enough sleep _and_ go out and party a bunch,” Finn says. “Board games seemed like the answer. That sounds kind of lame now that I’m explaining it out loud to somebody who isn’t Puck.”

“That’s… kind of lame and kind of smart, too,” Alexys says. 

“Partying just turned out to not be all it was advertised as,” Puck says with a shrug. He sets the box for _Life_ on the table. “I call the yellow car.” 

“Blue,” Finn and Alexys both say at the same time. Finn laughs and gestures for Alexys to take the blue car. 

“Now you have to take green,” Puck says, handing the green car to Finn and sitting down. After spinning the little spinner, they determine Puck gets to go first, then Alexys, and then Finn. “I’m skipping college in the game, though,” Puck says as he spins. “Someone spread the career cards for me.” 

“You know I’m not going to encourage that life decision,” Finn tells him, though he does spread the career cards out for Puck anyway. 

“Travel agent!” Puck says. “Awesome.” 

“You know you don’t get to actually travel in that job, right?” Alexys says. “I was so disappointed when I figured that out as a kid.” 

“So you like to travel?” Finn asks Alexys. 

“I like the idea of it. I’ve only been to Ohio and Kentucky, though.” 

“It’s still not a bad job,” Puck says. “Plenty of people. Your turn.” 

_Life_ goes the way it normally goes, which Puck once described to Finn as “not even a little like real life, and not necessarily in a good way,” though Finn notices with a pang of sadness, or maybe guilt, that Alexys quietly heads towards the college path and then takes the game much more seriously than Finn or Puck had anticipated. _Life_ doesn’t actually require any strategy to speak of, so it mostly comes down to best spins. Every time Puck gets another person added to his family—spouse, son, or daughter—he adds a blue peg, so after the fourth blue peg, Alexys and Finn preemptively start laughing whenever Puck lands on a baby square. As they near the end of the game, Puck’s car is completely full of blue pegs.

“It’s good that you’re a travel agent who doesn’t actually travel anywhere, since you have all those kids,” Finn says as he’s taking what is probably his last spin, since Alexys is way ahead of both of them. 

“Clones,” Puck says. “We have wealth from selling the story to the _Weekly World News_.” 

“I love that newspaper,” Alexys says, very sincerely. 

“Yeah, it’s funny,” Finn says.

“I should try to get a job there,” Puck says. “I’d be good at it, right?” 

“You’d make up some wild stories, for sure,” Finn agrees. 

“Or you could find people who honestly believe the stories they’re telling,” Alexys says. “You’d get so many details that way, probably.” 

“I’ll ask your secrets at _Life_ ,” Puck says. “That’ll make a good feature.” 

“I think the only secret to _Life_ is how to spin the spinner just right to land on the number you need,” Finn says. 

“And not having too many children,” Alexys says. “Puck will never win.” 

“His car is too heavy to go fast now, because of all of the dudes in it,” Finn says. 

“Definitely a problem I have in real life,” Puck says wryly. “Alexys, put us out of our misery so we can get to the murders!” 

“Should I be worried about the murder enthusiasm?” Alexys asks as she spins again. 

“Probably, but welcome to the family, I guess,” Finn says. Predictably, Alexys spins the exact number she needs to win the game. “Congratulations, Alexys. You win at _Life_.”

“I wouldn’t murder either of _you_ ,” Puck says, “so there’s really nothing to worry about.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, too,” Alexys says, grinning a little as she looks at her winning car with its peg-people. 

“Yeah, good to know we’re loved and murder-proof, right?” Finn says. He starts de-pegging his green car and cleaning up the rest of the board game pieces while Puck gets down the _Clue_ box. 

“And your name isn’t Mr. Body,” Puck says as he lays out the three groups of cards. “That guy was practically born to be a murder victim.” 

“So you were born to yacht?” Alexys asks innocently. 

“Born to collect pairs of animals,” Finn says. “He has to keep them in his room, though. They can’t roam around the apartment.”

“At least you were born to swim,” Puck says. “Sort of.” 

Alexys snorts once and attempts to hide a laugh. “Deal us the cards!” 

Finn can’t say he’s learned much about Alexys’s motivation or internal mechanisms or whatever Puck likes to call them, but her accusation of Professor Plum in the kitchen with the wrench does turn out to be correct, so he at least knows she’s observant. While Puck puts away the game, Finn finds Alexys a clean shirt she can sleep in.

“I think my sweatpants would be way too big around for you,” Finn tells Alexys as he gives her the shirt. “Sorry.”

“I have those drawstring ones she can use,” Puck says, heading into his room and rummaging around before reemerging with a pair of maroon drawstring sweats. 

“Yeah, that’ll probably work,” Alexys agrees. “I get the bathroom first?” 

“Sure,” Finn says. Alexys grins and heads into the bathroom, and after a few seconds, the door locks. 

“Good thing we’re not exhausted,” Puck says. 

“Yeah?” Finn asks. “Because we have to wait for the bathroom?”

“Well, yeah, that and we’re about to be in the same bed,” Puck says, smirking and tilting his head towards his bedroom. 

“Yeah, there’s that— well shit,” Finn says. “Should I go change the sheets on my bed? I should probably change the sheets. We did _stuff_ on those sheets!” 

“It’d be super-obvious,” Puck says quietly. “There’s no way she doesn’t notice we’re in the middle of changing them.” 

“Yeah, but she’s my sister,” Finn says. 

Puck tilts his head away from his bedroom, then back and forth a few times. “Fine, we can speed-change it. I’ll get a new set of sheets out while you strip it and stash the old ones in my room.” 

“Yeah, okay. Just… sex sheets, you know? I can’t let my new sister sleep in my sex bed on my sex sheets,” Finn says, “and besides, Mom always put clean sheets on the bed when we had visitors, so that’s all perfectly normal.”

Puck shakes his head and heads towards the hall closet. “Nothing about your mom’s normal, remember?” He pulls a set of sheets down. “Don’t call them ‘sex sheets’ to Alexys, either.” 

“Obviously not. I’m still not really sure what to tell her about me and you. Like, ‘hey, new sister, this is Puck, he’s my best friend and also my sex-friend’ doesn’t seem like the thing to do.”

Puck buries his face in the set of sheets in his arms, and when he finally lifts his head, it’s clear he’s trying not to laugh loudly. “Probably now is, ah.” He stops and laughs, then takes a deep breath. “Not the time to tell you to ‘strip faster’ then?” 

Finn tries to suppress a laugh and ends up just making a weird snorting noise through his nose. “Oh my god. You’re the worst, dude.” He does quickly remove the most-definitely-sexed-on sheets from his bed, though, and take the fresh sheets from Puck. Puck grins and walks to the other side of the bed, clearly waiting for Finn to shake the sheets out. 

“Well, you did manage it now, and you can recall those instructions later, how about that?” 

“Yeah, that’s probably easy enough to remember,” Finn says. “I can strip faster.”

“Talent,” Puck says, grabbing a blanket and shaking it out as well. “If we fluff the pillows up quick enough, she’ll think you just keep your bedroom this neat all the time.” 

Finn picks up a pillow and fluffs it up. “It’ll look like a hotel in here, if hotels had desks covered in school crap.” 

“Still better than a dorm,” Puck says, tossing the other pillow onto the bed. He goes to the door and peeks out, then looks back at Finn and lowers his voice. “So, what do you think so far?” 

“I don’t know,” Finn says, shaking his head. “I mean, I like her. She seems really cool. It’s just all so messed up, all the stuff with her mom and my mom, and I kind of get the feeling like that’s not even all of it, you know? Like the deal with her roommates. There’s maybe more going on than she’s saying.” 

“Maybe she’s scared? Only so much she can handle at once?” Puck says. “Man, like… I kind of like her, you know? She’s got some guts going on, coming up here to meet you. And I know we’re good people, but she’s _staying_ here, and she doesn’t really know us.” 

“We could be criminals,” Finn says, frowning. “Maybe I need to have an, I don’t know, brotherly talk with her about staying with strangers.”

“I think she’s _desperate_ ,” Puck says quietly. “She wants you to accept her. Whatever’s going on with the roommates, she thinks you might not like it, or it might make you think badly of her, or something like that.” 

“I hope she’s not in trouble, like those girls in the old movies Mom likes to watch.”

“Finn…” Puck says slowly. “You know that’s how they used to get around like, Hollywood censors and crap? It means they’re knocked up and unmarried.” 

“What?” Finn says. “No. I thought it meant they were on the run from the law or something!” 

“You two realize I’m not pregnant, right?” Alexys says. “No warrants out for me, either.” 

“ _I_ assumed that,” Puck says. 

“We could have been criminals!” Finn says, feeling a little defensive suddenly. 

“Are you?” Alexys asks. 

“Well, _no_ , obviously,” Finn says, “but we _could have been_!”

“Hey, I figured it out!” Puck says, looking pleased with himself. “I think the lack of self-preservation instinct definitely comes from the Hudson side.” 

“Hey!” Finn and Alexys both say simultaneously. 

“Jinx, you owe me a pop!” Alexys says after only a second or two passes. 

“I’ll buy you two pops, but you have to wait for tomorrow,” Finn says. “I’m glad you’re not on the run from the law. I’m also glad we aren’t criminals.”

“We’d make good criminals if we _did_ decide to embrace a life of crime,” Puck says. “Property crime only.” 

“Speaking of drinks, do you have anything like hot tea?” Alexys asks, looking sheepish. 

“We have bear tea,” Finn says. 

“Bear?” 

“The sleepytime tea, with the stuffed bear on it,” Puck explains. “It’s chamomile and something.”

“That’ll work, I guess,” Alexys says. “I usually have something warm to drink a little bit before I go to bed.” 

“He’s not a stuffed bear, Puck. He’s a regular bear in a nightcap and pajamas,” Finn says. “We’ve already talked about this before.”

“Teddy. Bear.” 

“Kettle?” Alexys interjects. 

“Regular,” Finn says. “No kettle. We put the glass measuring cup in the microwave.”

Alexys gasps and looks horrified. “Uncivilized!” 

“If you don’t look while it’s warming up, you won’t know,” Puck says. 

“We could _buy_ a kettle. If you want to come back,” Finn says to Alexys. 

“Not tonight,” Puck says, walking towards the kitchen. “I’ll get the tea. Finn, did we keep any of those coasters your mom insisted we’d need?” 

Finn nods. “They’re in the whatever drawer.”

“Yeah, get one of those out, I guess,” Puck says before he disappears into the kitchen. 

“The whatever drawer?” Alexys asks, sitting down on the sofa. 

Finn shrugs. “It’s where we put whatever. Puck says calling it a ‘junk drawer’ sounds trashy.”

“That’s ’cause it _is_ trashy!” Puck calls from the kitchen. 

“I guess it’s good to have a line?” Alexys says. “Too bad you don’t have a ‘whatever room’, I guess.” 

“Um. Just don’t look in my closet, I guess. Or under the bed.” Finn scratches the bridge of his nose and looks away. “Or on the desk. Really, just try to focus on how the bed looks really nice, okay?”

“You’re a twenty-year-old in college, I never thought you’d have an under the bed space that was clean,” Alexys says. She sighs and grabs the throw from the back of the sofa, tucking it around her feet. “I know you two have questions.” 

“You don’t have to answer them tonight if you don’t want to,” Finn says quickly. If there’s one thing he knows about getting people to talk, especially people like him, it’s that pushing them too hard gets the exact opposite result. 

“Let him ask one question,” Puck says as he walks in with a cup of tea. He sets it down in front of Alexys. “Then you can ask him one.” 

Finn looks at Alexys and waits for her to nod before he asks, “Okay. So what’s the deal with your roommates? It sounds like something’s up with them.”

Alexys adjusts the throw around her feet again and takes a sip of the tea before she sighs and opens her mouth to answer. “So we live in a two bedroom place, but there’s four of us, because that’s cheaper,” she says. “Tyler and Matt share one bedroom, and Samantha and I share the other one.” 

“So it’s kind of like living in a dorm?” Finn asks. “That doesn’t sound too terrible or anything.”

“Um.” Alexys gives him an odd look and drinks more tea. “Ah, it’s…” 

“I don’t think it’s like living in a dorm, Finn,” Puck says. 

“What’s it— no, I already asked my question, sorry,” Finn says. “Your turn, Alexys.”

“Did he really not get that?” Alexys asks Puck, who shakes his head no. 

“What? What didn’t I get? That doesn’t count as a question because you guys are talking about me,” Finn says.

“Alexys doesn’t have bunk beds or whatever you were picturing,” Puck says. “Those two dudes are her roommates like you’re thinking. Samantha, not like you’re thinking.” He turns to Alexys. “Right?” Alexys nods. 

“Wait,” Finn says, narrowing his eyes as he processes what Puck is saying. “Wait a minute. I can ask another question now, right? Or, I guess it’s not a question-question?” He looks at Alexys. “So, you and Samantha?”

“I still get to ask two questions!” Alexys says happily as she nods. “Yeah, me and Samantha.” 

“So, you’re like _together_ -together? Or is it like,” Finn lowers his voice, “sex friends?”

“Like what friends?” Alexys asks. 

“Kind of like—” Finn feels himself blushing furiously. He turns to Puck and sort of half-whispers, half-hisses, “Don’t make me say ‘fuck buddies’ to my new sister!”

“You’re the one who opened the door with sex friends!” Puck hisses back. 

“But they aren’t the same thing!” Finn insists. “One is, like, casual, but the other is casual-but-also-close-at-the-same-time, like more important!” 

“He wants to know if you and Samantha have defined your relationship explicitly, I think,” Puck says to Alexys. 

“Ohhh,” Alexys says, nodding. “Yeah. We have.” 

“Well,” Finn says. 

“What on earth are your eyebrows doing?” Alexys asks. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Finn says. He does, in fact, know exactly what she means, because he can feel his eyebrows doing some kind of weird thing on his face. 

Puck laughs. “At least we found something else that comes from the Hudson side,” he says. “Let her ask her questions.” 

“Oooh, excellent,” Alexys says. “Okay, so, tell me your favorite story about yourself from age…” She pauses and thinks. “Between ages six and twelve.” 

“I thought it was going to be a hard one, but that one’s easy,” Finn says. 

“Yeah? Which story?” Puck asks. 

“It’s my ‘how I met Puck’ story,” Finn says. “He ran into me on first base, so I slugged him.”

“That is _not_ [how it happened!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2553968)” Puck says. “That is… _codswallop_.” 

“Codswallop isn’t even a real word,” Finn protests. 

“Codswallop is a _great_ word, and you love it,” Puck says. 

“How old were you?” Alexys asks. 

“Seven,” Finn says. “And maybe Puck threw the first punch, but I threw the better punch.”

“He did not throw the better punch,” Puck says. 

“Is there a video anywhere of this?” Alexys asks. 

“God, I hope not,” Finn says. “We both ended up rolling around in the dirt like a couple of morons.”

“Time for Alexys to ask her second question!” Puck announces, and Alexys laughs. 

“Decisions, decisions,” Alexys says, looking Finn up and down. 

“Oh no,” Finn says quietly. “What question are you planning to ask?”

“It’s more like I have about fifteen different ones I could ask,” Alexys says. “Is there any way I can earn a bonus third question or something?” She shakes her head at herself and drinks more tea. “Okay. Who were you in high school? You know, group-wise.” 

Finn exhales a long sigh of relief. “Oh, that one’s _way_ easy. Glee club and football.”

“Huh?” Alexys says. “Both of them?” 

“Yeah. Puck, too, and some guys named Mike, Sam, and Matt,” Finn says. “Even my step-brother, Kurt, was on the team for a little while! I mean, technically, so was Artie. Oh, and the girls, too.”

“It’s true,” Puck says. “The girls were only on the team for a single game, though. So do they really count as team members?” 

“Technically, yes,” Finn says. 

“But in the spirit of things, no,” Puck says, answering his own question. “They didn’t get letter jackets or anything.” 

“They played in a game,” Finn insists. “They count.”

“They may or may not count,” Puck says to Alexys. “But they were definitely in the glee club.”

“How can you two be so normal and yet so weird?” Alexys asks. 

Finn starts laughing, and maybe it’s the stress of the whole past few days catching up to him, or maybe it’s just how completely absurd Alexys’s question is, because once he starts laughing, he can’t stop. He keeps laughing until his eyes are tearing up and he can’t catch his breath, beating his fist against his knee at the absolute ridiculousness of the idea that he and Puck are _normal_.

“You can have two extra questions tomorrow,” Puck says, “but I think for tonight, I’m going to make Finn go to bed— and remember his earlier instructions.”


	5. A Little Sloppy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We apologize for this chapter being largely PWP, but we wrote it during our first tropical storm and the heavier stuff of next chapter (which we were going to include in this one) was NOT something we could mentally handle. Hence, that'll be next time, and this time you get smut.

Finn is still fighting near-hysterical laughter as Puck hauls him into the other bedroom and shuts the door. Puck wraps both arms around him once the door is shut, tugging Finn towards the bed. “Somebody’s tired,” Puck says. 

“It’s all just,” Finn says, gasping for breath as he shakes with the effort of not laughing, “it’s just all a lot, it’s just a lot, right? It’s a lot.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot,” Puck agrees. “And we were never normal, really.” 

“And my mom. My mom was worried about _Alexys’s_ influence,” Finn says. Another fit of laughter overtakes him, and he presses his face against Puck’s shoulder, trying to catch his breath and ending up making a godawful-sounding snort as a result, which just makes him laugh harder. 

“Shh,” Puck says, patting Finn’s back slowly. “We’re okay.” 

“Why am I even like this? The bad stuff didn’t happen to me. Why am I like this?” Finn mumbles into Puck’s shoulder. 

“Because it’s still a lot,” Puck says, steering them to sit down. “And it’s just one more lie your mom told.” 

“But nothing bad ever happened to me,” Finn says. He lets Puck steer him, because it’s easier than trying to figure out where to go or what to do while also trying to breathe through the lingering spasms of laughter. 

“Not on the same scale, maybe, but you didn’t know your sister,” Puck says. He keeps patting Finn’s back after they sit. “And not because your mom didn’t know about her.” 

Finn nuzzles his face into the side of Puck’s neck. “It’s so messed up, Puck.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely that,” Puck says. “It’s messed up and unfair, and it’s okay to be upset about that.” 

“Are we the bad guys?” Finn asks quietly. “Are me and my mom the bad guys in this story?”

“How could you be a bad guy? You’re barely an adult now.” 

“I grew up in a house. I grew up with my mom. I had everything, and Alexys didn’t have anything, and I still messed so much stuff up,” Finn says. 

“What’d you mess up, huh?” Puck asks. 

“Stuff!” Finn says. “Like, so much stuff.” The urge to laugh seems to be fading, which is good, but in its place, Finn feels a heavy sadness, the kind of feeling Puck calls ‘having alligators’. Finn has some big ol’ alligators. 

“Nothing important, like this,” Puck says. “You get the important things right.”

“Did I, though?” Finn asks. 

“Name one important thing you think you messed up.” 

“I don’t know. I should’ve been smarter. I should’ve done better in school. I should be doing something big, to make up for having all that stuff Alexys didn’t have.”

“That’s not how it works,” Puck says, sliding his hand around to Finn’s shoulder and pulling Finn closer.

“It feels like it does. I feel like I should,” Finn says. He curls into Puck and lets himself be held. 

“You can be really upset for her and really mad at your mom, without feeling like you did anything wrong, or didn’t do something you should,” Puck says. “Maybe you could even argue the only thing you should be is upset and angry.” 

“Maybe,” Finn says, nodding against Puck’s neck. “Maybe so.”

“And it’s okay to be confused, too. It’s a lot,” Puck adds. 

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. 

“You want to keep talking? Or you want to strip now?”

“Strip now, I think.”

“You want some help with that?” 

Finn nods mutely and Puck slides his hand down to Finn’s waist, then runs his fingers under Finn’s shirt for a few moments before lifting it. “We can do that.” He lifts Finn’s shirt higher, nudging his arm. “Lift your arms.” 

Finn lifts his arms and wiggles enough to actually be helpful as Puck removes his shirt and tosses it to the floor, vaguely in the direction of Puck’s laundry basket. Then Puck pushes on Finn’s shoulders, aiming them towards the rest of the bed. Finn lies back against the mattress and starts to undo his jeans. 

“Yeah, that’s the idea,” Puck says, nodding and replacing Finn’s hands with his. After Puck unzips his jeans, Finn lifts his hips so Puck can pull them down. It’s easier to lie there and let Puck do things than to make his brain work hard enough to do them for himself, and besides, he can trust Puck to know what needs done. 

Puck throws the jeans on top of Finn’s shirt, then repeats the entire process with Finn’s boxers. “Whoops,” Puck says. “I actually got those in the basket.” 

“Could’ve played basketball with me,” Finn says. 

“You kind of sucked at basketball, so if I’d played too, we would have really dragged the team down.” 

“Can’t get lower than the bottom,” Finn points out. “We had an oh-and-twenty season both years I played.”

“I should say something over the top and cheesy here,” Puck says. “About showing me how low you go, maybe.” 

Finn snorts a laugh, but it isn’t hysterical this time, at least. “Yeah that’s cheesy, alright, but I can go pretty low.”

“Yeah, you like cheesy,” Puck says, looking pleased. He stands up and pulls off his own shirt and jeans before climbing back on the bed next to Finn. “Don’t you?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says as he rolls towards Puck. “I do.”

“Tell me what you want tonight,” Puck says. 

“Not to think,” Finn says. He runs a hand down Puck’s side to his hip, squeezes Puck’s hipbone when he gets to it. 

“I can definitely help with that.” Puck moves closer, throwing one leg over Finn and then kissing Finn’s neck. Finn lets his eyes flutter closed and squeezes Puck’s hip again. Puck’s mouth moves down Finn’s neck, and one of Puck’s hands lands on Finn’s waist, fingers trailing across it. Finn slides his hand from Puck’s hip to his ass, squeezing that, too, and pressing himself closer. Puck seems to settle on a patch of skin where Finn’s neck meets his shoulder and camps there, licking and sucking between kisses. 

“That’s good, that’s really good,” Finn says. He pulls Puck in as close as he can, until Puck’s dick is pressed against Finn’s stomach. Puck seems to chuckle against Finn’s neck, and he rocks his hips towards Finn even more. A few seconds later, Puck’s hand slides between them, wrapping around Finn’s dick. Finn exhales hard. 

“Good?” Puck asks unnecessarily, beginning to stroke slowly up and down Finn’s dick. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Yeah, that’s good.” He rocks forward, trying to encourage Puck to grind against him. Puck chuckles again, and he goes back to the same place on Finn’s neck as he does start to grind. “Yeah, that’s good, too, that’s good.”

“Mmm, you like most things, don’t you?” Puck asks, his hand moving a little faster. 

“Things that _you_ do, yeah,” Finn agrees. He squeezes Puck’s ass again, trying to pull him closer, even though there’s not really any empty space between them. 

“Anything else matter?” Puck asks. Finn shakes his head. “Then you like most things.” Puck nips at Finn’s neck. 

“What about you? What do you like?” Finn asks. 

Puck nips again and grinds a little harder against Finn. “This is good.” 

“Just this?”

“You want me to say something else?” Puck asks teasingly. 

Finn shakes his head. “You just always know what I want. I want to make sure you get what you want, too.”

“You know me. I like things a little sloppy.” 

“Good thing, since that’s how I do most stuff,” Finn says. He’s centered now, solid, from Puck’s hand on him, and he digs his fingers into Puck’s skin as Puck continues jerking him off. He wants to do that for Puck, too. Make things solid and real. “We can do whatever you want, though, if you ever want to do something.”

Puck laughs a little. “We’re doing _something_ right now. Don’t you want to come?” 

Finn shakes his head again. “No, I want to, I want to do something.”

Puck pauses and pulls back slightly, looking closely at Finn. “Okay. Tell me.” 

“I want to blow you,” Finn says, turning red. Blowjobs haven’t really been a part of their undefined sex-friend thing, other than the celebratory one from Puck when Finn got an A on his term paper. Still, it’s what Finn wants to do now for Puck, who always does so much for Finn. 

“Yeah?” Puck’s hips stutter forward a little. “You like that idea?” 

Finn nods. He likes that idea a lot, in fact. “Yeah. Do you want me to?” Puck nods, his hand moving faster. “Then you’ve gotta stop so I can.”

Puck laughs and rolls onto his back. “We can get more creative some other time.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says, rolling on top of Puck. Before he moves downward, though, he presses his mouth to Puck’s, kissing him slowly. Puck lets his mouth drop open under Finn’s, his hands falling to his sides. Finn takes his time, focusing on the feeling of Puck’s lips under his, on Puck’s tongue, letting the kiss get sloppy like Puck likes. Puck relaxes underneath Finn, his dick still hard against Finn’s stomach. 

Finn props himself up a little on one elbow, his other hand coming up to the side of Puck’s face to hold him in place while they keep kissing. He rolls his hips, too, pressing against Puck’s dick, trapped between them. Puck whines a little into their kiss. Finn laughs softly, lifting his mouth from Puck’s for a moment.

“Yeah, who’s easy now?” Finn asks. “You’re sooooo easy.”

“Never said I wasn’t!” 

“Yeah, I know.”

Finn returns to kissing Puck, because even though they’re both pretty easy, kissing is still awesome. Puck whines into Finn’s mouth again, and one of Puck’s hands lands on Finn’s ass. Finn grinds down harder and sucks on Puck’s tongue a little, just to be contrary. Puck jumps a little, his dick pushing up into Finn’s skin. 

Laughing, Finn lifts his head again. “Okay, okay,” he says, moving his mouth to Puck’s neck. 

“It’s not _bad_ ,” Puck says. 

“What’s not bad? You being easy?” Finn asks, moving to Puck’s left collarbone.

“The kissing, too.” 

“My kisses are only ‘not bad’?” Finn says. He makes a little _hmph_ and rests his chin on Puck’s collarbone. 

“Wasn’t what you said was happening,” Puck says, like that should be self-explanatory. 

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair,” Finn says. He puts his mouth back on Puck’s collarbone and then starts kissing down his chest slowly, pausing occasionally to glance up at Puck, who looks a little spaced out, though hopefully in a good way. When Finn gets to the line of hair running from Puck’s bellybutton downward, he nuzzles his nose against it, digging into Puck’s belly enough to make him laugh. 

“Get lost?” Puck teases. 

Finn _hmphs_ again and slides down Puck just enough to take the head of Puck’s dick into his mouth. Puck’s laughter cuts off, and his hips jerk just a little before Puck seems to stop them. Finn grins—as much as somebody can with a dick in their mouth, at least—and gives Puck’s dick an experimental flick with his tongue. 

Puck lets out another whine, and his hands land on Finn’s head, fingers almost scratching at Finn’s scalp. Finn takes that as encouragement to do it again.

“Finn!” Puck says, and this time his fingers are definitely scratching. Finn briefly considers stopping for long enough to ask if that means Puck _doesn’t_ like it, but he figures that would be too mean. Instead, he moves his mouth farther down Puck’s dick, also wrapping one hand around the base. 

The fingers on Finn’s scalp curl up, and Puck grabs at Finn’s hair, his hips jerking again. Finn slides his mouth as far down Puck’s dick as he can, until his lips just meet his hand, and then he just goes for it with everything he’s got. He sucks and licks and slides his mouth up and down, moving his hand at the same time. It’s _definitely_ sloppy, but Puck is making happy little moans, tugging at Finn’s hair. 

Puck smells good, and he tastes good, and Finn hasn’t gotten any less hard without Puck’s hand on him, because doing this to Puck might be one of the hottest things he’s ever done. Puck keeps moaning, like he’s unaware of the sounds he’s making, and his hips start to move with the rhythm Finn has set. Finn just keeps going and giving it his all, trying to make some encouraging noises to make sure Puck knows he’s enjoying it, too. 

Without any warning, Puck pulls sharply on Finn’s hair and then comes a second later, his hips jerking up off the bed. Finn isn’t quite prepared, so he coughs a little, then swallows, then coughs again, then gives Puck’s dick one more good pass with his tongue before he sits up, wiping his mouth. 

“Cool?” Finn asks. 

“Sorry,” Puck says sheepishly. “Definitely cool.” 

“Don’t be sorry. It was awesome,” Finn says. “I liked it. Like, a lot.”

“Yeah?” Puck props himself up on one arm, reaching for Finn’s dick with his other hand. “Come here.” Finn scoots back up the bed until he’s next to Puck. 

“Yeah,” Finn says, turning a little red. “It was. You know. Hot.”

“Yeah, it was,” Puck says, his fingers closing around Finn’s dick and sliding up slowly. “You ready to come now?” Instead of answering, Finn just nods and closes his eyes, moving close and putting his head on Puck’s shoulder. Puck’s hand moves faster and he kisses the side of Finn’s head. “Yeah, do that for me, okay?” 

Finn makes a low, whiny noise as he comes in Puck’s hand. Puck keeps moving his hand until Finn is completely still and relaxed, then he kisses the side of Finn’s head again. 

“Yeah, that was perfect,” Puck says, his voice quiet. 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees softly. “I feel so much better now, too.” 

“Good.” Puck sits quietly with Finn leaning on him for a few minutes. “Ready to go to bed?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He wedges his head into the space between Puck’s head and shoulder and drapes most of his body over Puck’s, because being a human blanket with as much skin contact as possible is definitely good for his emotional turmoil. 

Puck laughs for a few seconds, then wiggles the two of them around until there is a sheet over them. “’Night,” Puck says. “Sleep as long as you need.” 

“Already got what I needed,” Finn says, but sleeping in doesn’t sound like the worst idea, either, and he doesn’t try to fight sleep when it comes not that long after.


	6. Intense Middle-of-the-Night Bonding

“No!” 

When he hears the terrified scream, Finn sits bolt upright in Puck’s bed like he’s some kind of freaked-out black-and-white movie Dracula. Puck stirs a little, reaching towards Finn and making a questioning noise. “Buh?” 

“I think we have home invaders!” Finn whispers. “I think they’re attacking Alexys! We need a weapon!”

“No! Stop!” Alexys screams again, and then lets out a wordless groan. 

“Finn?” Puck says, slowly sitting up. 

“There’s no time for a weapon!” Finn say, leaping out the bed. “We’ve got to help her!” He runs for the door, barely noticing Puck following behind him, and manages to get through Puck’s door, cross the hall, and throw open the door to the other bedroom in about half a second. “Leave my sister alone!” Finn shouts into the dark room. 

“There’s no one here,” Puck says, sounding confused. 

“No,” Alexys says, quieter than before.

“Alexys?” Finn asks. “Alexys, are you okay? Is there a home invader in here?”

“Wha—huh?” Alexys says, and then the bed creaks. “Finn?” 

“I heard shouting. I thought it was a home invasion,” Finn says. His heart is hammering in his chest, and he feels a little woozy, now that he’s sure Alexys isn’t being actively home-invaded. 

“So you came in here?” Alexys says. 

“Yeah, he started running,” Puck says from behind Finn, and without saying anything else, Alexys starts to cry. 

“Oh. Oh no! Don’t cry, Alexys, it’s okay,” Finn says. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay. Everything’s fine. I think it was just a nightmare, maybe.” He leans towards Puck and whispers, as quietly as he can, “Should I pat her back or something?”

“I don’t know,” Puck whispers back equally quietly. He leans forward and turns on Finn’s lamp. 

“You _came_ ,” Alexys says through her crying. 

“Well, yeah, of course,” Finn says. He steps closer to Alexys and awkwardly pats her on the back, which has always been a good course of action when Kurt cries, until he’s obviously at the point where it’s okay to transition to a hug. 

“I never,” Alexys says, stopping to gulp some air and cry more. “You actually did. I never thought it’d happen,” she finally says. 

“Do you need a glass of water?” Finn asks as he continues to pat her. 

Alexys shakes her head. Puck leans in, his voice quieter than before. “Just hug her,” he says. 

Finn, being the excellent Puck-listener that he is, leans over and hugs Alexys. At first it makes her cry harder, her face on his shoulder, but then she slowly seems to calm down. He realizes she’s a lot skinnier than he realized. Her spine feels a little knobby as he keeps patting her on the back while still leaning over into the hug. It’s not the most comfortable position—Alexys is tall, but he’s still _standing_ , so it’s kind of far to lean—but since it does appear to help, he isn’t inclined to stop. 

“Sorry,” Alexys says quietly after a few more moments pass. “I didn’t mean to.” 

“To… have a nightmare?” Finn asks. “That’s not your fault. You can’t help having nightmares. It’s just stuff your brain does when you sleep.”

Alexys shakes her head. “Make a scene,” she says. “They don’t happen all the time. I thought it’d be fine.” 

“You didn’t make a scene. I bet nobody outside the apartment even heard you,” Finn insists. 

“I don’t think she was worried about outside the apartment,” Puck whispers, then addresses Alexys. “You have nightmares a lot?” he asks softly. Alexys freezes, then slowly nods. 

“Oh, man, that really sucks,” Finn says. “I’m sorry. Do you want some more bear tea?”

“We can go pile on the sofa,” Puck offers. “I think we have some cookies, too.” 

Alexys sniffs a few more times before nodding. “Okay. We can do that.” 

“Oh! I could do warm milk! Kurt taught me how to make it so it tastes right,” Finn says. 

“See? We’ve got this,” Puck says, taking a step back and gesturing for Finn to urge Alexys up and into the living room. Finn uses the hug position to get her up onto her feet, then moves to her side so his arm is around her shoulders. He steers her gently towards the living room and onto the sofa. 

Alexys sits down, and Puck tosses the throw over her shoulders before stepping into the kitchen. He returns with a package of cookies and sets it on the coffee table. “So, tea, milk, or both?” Puck asks Alexys. 

“Both?” Alexys says uncertainly. 

“Puck can sit in here with you while I go make the milk and the tea, okay?” Finn says. 

“Okay,” Alexys says, nodding, and Puck sits down on the sofa, leaving about six inches between the two of them. 

Finn pats Alexys’s back one more time before heading for the kitchen. He can hear Puck talking to her in low murmur as he gets down the tea and pulls the milk out of the fridge. He sticks a small saucepan on the stove and pours in the milk, adding a little honey and vanilla with a sprinkle of nutmeg like Kurt taught him. While that slowly warms, he puts a thing of water into the microwave to heat for tea. Somehow, despite it being—according to the oven clock—just past three in the morning, Finn manages to get the tea and the milk into mugs without spilling anything or burning himself. 

“Here you go,” Finn says, carrying in Alexys’s mugs of tea and milk and setting them down in front of her. “Puck, you wanted some milk, too, right?”

“Sure,” Puck says, looking slightly amused. “Maybe we should turn the heat on for a few minutes, too.” 

“Yeah, I’ll do that after I bring in the other mugs,” Finn says. He returns to the kitchen for the last two mugs, puts them on the coffee table, and then cranks the heat up a few degrees before settling on the sofa on the other side of Alexys. 

“You want us to distract you?” Puck asks. “Or be quiet?” 

“Either way,” Alexys says. “I… don’t know what to say.” She picks up the mug of milk in front of her and takes a sip. 

“You don’t have to say anything, or you can just talk about whatever,” Finn says. 

“I don’t know if I should say anything. That’s really it,” Alexys says, then looks embarrassed. 

“Hey,” Finn says softly, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but if you do want to, we won’t be assholes about it, okay? Whatever it is.”

Alexys nods. She takes a few more sips of the milk, seemingly surprised, then a deep breath. “My nightmares aren’t things my brain made up.” 

“Shit,” Puck says quietly. 

“It’s really bad?” Finn asks. 

“They, um, are mostly things that happened,” Alexys says, gulping down a lot of milk after saying it. 

Finn looks across Alexys at Puck, hoping he’ll communicate psychically and tell Finn what he’s suppose to say in this scenario. Puck shrugs very slightly and picks up his own mug.

“Before or after your grandmother died?” Puck asks, sounding like he already knows the answer. 

“Yeah, after,” Alexys says. “Mostly.” 

“What can I do to help?” Finn asks. 

Alexys shakes her head. “Foster care just isn’t a good place for teenage girls.” 

“Is this call-the-police kind of stuff? Could the police help?” Finn asks. “I mean, maybe you already did that, I don’t know.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that the police don’t really listen,” Puck says. “It’s just a guess, but considering the times I’ve interacted with them, it seems plausible.” 

“What he said,” Alexys says, nodding. “Kids are in foster care ‘for a reason’ so they don’t believe us.” 

“But sometimes the reason is just that people died,” Finn says. 

Alexys shrugs. “No one really asks. It’s probably too late now, anyway.”

“You’re either daft or brave like your brother,” Puck says. 

“Hey!” Finn says, then, “Wait, what’s ‘daft’ mean again? Don’t old-Scotsman at me!”

“A little dim,” Puck says unrepentantly. 

“Wait, why am I?” Alexys asks. 

“Staying here. You don’t technically know us,” Puck points out. 

“We’re good strangers,” Finn says. “And I’m not dim.”

“Probably a little daft,” Alexys admits. “At least on my part.” She sighs and leans back against the sofa. “And some hope, in spite of everything.” 

“ _I_ don’t think we’re daft,” Finn insists. 

“It’s okay, I like you anyway,” Puck says. “But Alexys was still brave.” 

“Yeah. You’re definitely brave, Alexys,” Finn says. “I’m glad you are.”

“I didn’t have that much left to lose. Like Janis Joplin.” 

“You like Janis Joplin? Puck, she likes Janis Joplin!”

“I heard her,” Puck says, laughing a little. “But it’s not the best place to be. Alexys?” Alexys shrugs and then nods a little. 

“You and Sam should just move here and live in our apartment,” Finn says. 

“I do technically have a job in Cincinnati,” Alexys points out. 

Puck looks a little confused and slightly pleased. “If you want to tell us why the nightmares and the Janis, we can listen,” he says after a minute or two passes. “We’re not going to be shocked or whatever.” 

“We’ll just listen and give you more milk,” Finn says. 

“And cookies,” Puck adds, opening the package. 

“Are you sure about that?” Alexys says. “It’s not pretty.” 

“We’re not pearl-clutchers,” Puck says. 

“What does that even mean?” Finn asks him. “Did you just make that up right here?”

“Like Ms. Pillsbury-Schuester. You know. Pearls. Clutching them,” Puck says. 

“Oh, yeah, she did wear a lot of pearls all the time,” Finn says. 

“I wasn’t thirteen yet when Grandma died,” Alexys says. “It’s a lot of years. You’re _sure_?” 

Puck looks at Finn, and they both nod. “We’re sure,” Puck says for them. 

“I was classified as a teenager in the system, and I didn’t really understand what was going to happen,” Alexys says. “I was honest with the social worker. I told her about Mom, and about our dad, and even about Carole. I think what ended up in my file, what foster parents got out of that, was that I was at high risk for addiction.” 

“Oh shit,” Finn whispers. “That’s not good.”

Alexys shakes her head. “No. The good families, they pass on files like that. So the pool of potential placements is already narrowed at that point. And since I was listed as a teenager, both of my emergency placements made comments about how I was ‘only’ in seventh grade.” 

“They couldn’t bother to do basic math with your birthday?” Puck asks, looking slightly angry. “How do these people get approved?” 

Alexys shrugs. “I still haven’t figured that part out.” 

“I can find them,” Finn says quietly. “I’ll find them.”

“The first place wasn’t bad, really, not in retrospect,” Alexys says. “I didn’t understand the system. I was used to Mom and Grandma, and people who cared? I thought it was reasonable to ask if I could make a sandwich instead of eating lezco stew.” 

“I don’t even know that is. I’d probably ask for a sandwich, too,” Finn says. 

“It’s Polish,” Alexys says. “And there were at least two different kinds of pork in it, so I tried to point that out when lezco came out again the next week. I didn’t get my sandwich, but I got a new placement.” 

“Oh no,” Finn says. 

“I suspect by then I had ‘religious’ added to my file, but no one asked what religion, or if I really was,” Alexys says with a snort of laughter. “My second emergency placement didn’t understand why I didn’t want to go to Solid Rock with them every Sunday. And Wednesday. And other days in between.” 

“Hey, I told you!” Puck says triumphantly to Finn. 

Finn tilts his head. “Huh?”

“Told you she could be Jewish!” 

“Are you?” Finn asks. “Jewish?” he asks Alexys. 

“Yeah,” Alexys says, looking puzzled. “Why on earth was that one of the things you discussed?” 

“Because Puck’s Jewish,” Finn says. 

“Get out,” Alexys says to Puck. “What’re the odds?” 

Puck shrugs, looking smug. “Not high. Finn’s odd man out this time!” 

“I could be Jewish if I tried, though,” Finn says. “I mean, I could, like, convert.”

“Sure,” Alexys says. “If you start learning Hebrew now, maybe we can do our bar and bat mitzvahs at the same time.” 

“Yours didn’t happen?” Puck asks, and Alexys shakes her head. 

“I’ll throw you a bat mitzvah, even if I can’t learn Hebrew, which I’m not sure I can, since I couldn’t even learn Spanish,” Finn says. “I’m still allowed to throw the party, right?”

“Yeah, you can throw a party,” Puck says, “and we can force you to learn Hebrew. It’s not like you were learning Spanish from someone who actually spoke the language.” 

Alexys snorts with laughter. “Do you mean your Spanish teacher couldn’t speak Spanish?” 

“Yeah, he wasn’t very good as a Spanish teacher,” Finn says. 

“See, who knows, then?” Puck says. 

“He’s right. So, yeah, my file said ‘religious’ but not what religion. The second temporary placement wanted me to move on faster but my social worker had me stay until a more permanent placement was found.” Alexys sighs. “That’s when things really got worse.” 

“Oh shit, Alexys,” Finn says. “What happened?”

Alexys pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. “The foster parents there really weren’t that bad,” she says. “But I was barely thirteen, by then, and they had a biokid of their own. He was seventeen.” 

“Aww, dammit,” Puck says. “You don’t have to tell us details if you don’t want to, you know that, right?” Finn nods his agreement and tries not to look too angry.

“It isn’t— it wasn’t as bad as you think, probably,” Alexys says. “He never touched me. He just watched me, all the time. I never knew when he’d open a door, even if I were in the bathroom.” 

“That’s still bad,” Finn says. 

“It made me really jumpy, yeah,” Alexis agrees. “I tried to tell his parents. I got permission to lock the bathroom door, even though I could tell the mom didn’t believe me. She really did sort of try, you know? But I wasn’t allowed to lock my bedroom door. It was too risky, they said.” 

“Because of the file?” Puck asks, and Alexys nods. 

“She was still wrong to not let you lock your door,” Finn says. “I don’t care what the file said.”

Alexys shrugs. “Parents don’t like to believe things about their kids.” 

“So?” Puck says. 

“How long did you have to stay there?” Finn asks. 

“Not long enough,” Alexys says bitterly. “I didn’t know better. When my caseworker came to visit, I told her about it. She put in a request for a new placement. I thought that was a good thing. No one told me that a fourth placement in less than two years also made me look like trouble.” 

“Oh no,” Finn says. “Then it got _really_ bad?”

Alexys exhales and nods slowly. “Whatever you’re imagining, unless you have a very terrible and vivid imagination, it was worse.” 

“No, Finn, we can’t go find them right now,” Puck says firmly. 

“In the morning,” Finn agrees. 

“Not necessarily in the morning, either,” Puck says. “Alexys probably likes her brother not in jail.” 

“We could develop a plan of action that would cut down on the risk of jail time in the morning,” Finn says. 

“Oh no,” Puck says, shaking his head, then looking at Alexys. “Sorry. Go on.” 

“It’s fine,” Alexys says. “The first three placements got gradually worse, and then after that, some were worse than others, but they were all bad.” 

“You should have been able to come and live with us,” Finn says angrily. “You should have been with family.”

“It would have been better,” Alexys admits. 

“Maybe if Mom had realized how bad it was, she would’ve gotten her head out of her ass and done the right thing. I mean, she wouldn’t have been keeping tabs on you or anything. Maybe if we’d have known, we could’ve helped,” Finn says, scowling a little. “If she _had_ kept tabs on you, we could’ve.”

“It’s a nice thought,” Alexys says wistfully. “If she’s like a lot of adults, though, she would have seen it as even more reason to keep the two of us apart.” 

“Well, that’s stupid, and she’d’ve been wrong,” Finn says. 

“I can’t think of many adults who’d be different,” Puck says. “Can you, really?” 

Finn shakes his head. “It’s still stupid and wrong.”

“Technically the three of us are adults,” Alexys says. “But we weren’t then, so it doesn’t count.” 

“Did you ever have a _good_ placement?” Puck asks. “Before you turned eighteen?” 

Alexys shakes her head no. “Like I said, some of them were better than others, but they were all bad for various reasons. One of them was just really strict. It was… my sixth or seventh one, I guess. I was still pretty young. I thought the media rules were too harsh, and they were, and they said awful things, but no one touched me or hit me there.” 

“I’m so sorry, Alexys,” Finn says. He feels like he should pat her on the back again, but considering the topic of conversation, he’s not sure it’s the best idea, so he tries to give her a look that conveys a back-pat. 

“It’s… I don’t know, it’s not _okay_ ,” Alexys says. “It’s over, and I don’t have to see any of those people again. But it also was awful.” 

“It makes me want to be a foster dad, though, so I can make sure messed up stuff doesn’t happen to other kids,” Finn says. 

“Then you can’t go to jail,” Puck says pointedly. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay, fine,” Finn says, waving his hand at Puck. “No jail. Whatever.” 

Alexys smiles suddenly. “It’s sweet,” she says. 

“What? Me not going to jail? Because that’s all on Puck,” Finn says. 

“The two of you,” she says, gesturing between Puck and Finn. 

“Us?” Finn asks. “We’re not sweet. We’re just big believers in people not being terrible.”

“Right,” Alexys says, nodding. “I mean, I do know a lot of terrible people, so it’s good Puck’s going to keep you out of jail.” 

“Does it feel better to talk about it?” Finn asks. 

“Weirdly, yeah?” Alexys says. “It makes it more real, which sucks, but if it’s real, it’s okay if I’m still fucked up by it.” 

“We’re all at least a little fucked up,” Puck says. 

Finn shrugs. “Maybe more than a little, in different ways.”

“I get to be the most fucked up for tonight,” Alexys says, “since I’m the reason we’re all awake.” 

“It feels not very nice to agree, but it _is_ like three-thirty in the morning,” Finn says. 

Alexys shrugs. “It’s okay, I own it. I told Sam when I met her that I think we’ve basically mislabeled terrorism. I lived in terror. Shouldn’t that count?” 

“I think so,” Finn says. “And I hate it. I hate that’s how you had to live. You should’ve been with me.”

“It probably wouldn’t have made a difference,” Alexys says, deflating a little. “Mom still would have been Mom, all of it.” 

Puck winces. “Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what you change and when.” 

“If my mom had helped yours when she needed it, it could’ve been different,” Finn says. Puck nods. 

“Maybe,” Alexys says. “Maybe the only people who care about that are sitting here.” 

“Well, I’m glad you’re sitting here with us, anyway,” Finn says. “I wish it had been sooner, but I’m still glad it happened. I’m really glad you called me.”

“Finally, you mean,” Alexys says. “I told myself for years I would on my eighteenth birthday, but I chickened out then.”

“It had to be hard to do. You were really brave,” Finn says. 

Alexys shrugs. “It all just feels like surviving. Not bravery.” 

“Either way, you’re still pretty awesome,” Finn insists. 

“You barely know me!” Alexys says, though she’s grinning. 

Finn shrugs. “Yeah, but we’ve had intense middle-of-the-night bonding now. That’s like a six month shortcut to getting to know somebody, at least. Maybe even a year.”

“I get to sleep in, right?” Alexys says as she yawns. 

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Finn says. 

Alexys turns and smiles sleepily. “The milk was actually really good. That’s so wild, that it helps.” 

“I was skeptical at first, too, but it’s like magic,” Finn says. “Weird, warm, magical milk.”

“Which makes you a magician, I guess,” Puck says. “Let’s go tuck your little sister back into bed.”


	7. A Little Light Murder

They don’t literally tuck Alexys into bed, because she’s pretty much an adult and that would be weird and inappropriate, but Finn does give her another hug and walk her to his bedroom while Puck gets the mugs washed up in the kitchen. Once Alexys shuts the door behind her, Finn goes into Puck’s room and sits on the bed to wait for him. 

“Hey,” Puck says quietly when he steps back into the room, shutting the door behind him. 

“Hey,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Man. Right?”

Puck sighs heavily and sits down close to Finn. “Yeah. I feel a little bit like a heel, though. Like, I _really_ hate all that stuff happened to her, but I’m also relieved it wasn’t you. Which is probably horrible of me.” 

“I wouldn’t want it to happen to anybody,” Finn says, “but if it was the other way around, and you found about Jake and this stuff had happened to him, I’d be relieved it wasn’t you, too. I really do want to murder some people, though. Like straight up find them and murder them.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees. He frowns. “I wish her grandmother’d been able to do something, too, but I guess she tried. That list of people to murder is pretty long.” 

“Yeah, and I’m not totally sure my mom shouldn’t be on it at least a little,” Finn says.

“A little light murder?” 

Finn laughs a little, though it isn’t a funny laugh. “She should have to know what happened because she was so worried about Alexys being a bad influence. She should have to feel guilty about it.”

Puck doesn’t say anything at first, putting his hand on Finn’s shoulder and leaning towards him. “Will she?” he finally says, quietly. 

“I’ll _make_ her,” Finn says, scowling a little as he shakes his head. “I’ll make sure she does.”

“I’m just wondering if she’ll get mad at Alexys,” Puck says. “After all, her whole thing was keeping the two of you apart, right?” 

“I won’t bring Alexys there, so it won’t matter. I’ll make her understand.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s good. I—” Puck cuts himself off and looks almost guilty. 

“What?” Finn asks. 

“I hope you can manage that. I’m just not totally sure it’ll happen.” 

“All I can do is try,” Finn says. “She should know what she helped make happen.”

“How do you want to do it?” Puck asks, nodding once. 

Finn mulls it over for a minute, considering his options. Finally, he says, “I want to ambush her.”

“Not literally jumping out, right? Dropping-in kind of ambush?” 

“I’m not going to hide in actual bushes and jump out at her,” Finn says. “I mean like tell her at a restaurant or some place public where she can’t just storm off to her room and she can’t yell at me about it.” He pauses. “Also, you could be there.”

“I was planning on it, I just wanted to make sure we weren’t going to be crouched behind the cart return at Ray’s.” 

“Dude, you know I’m way too big to be able to fit behind the cart return.”

“I didn’t say it would be the most effective plan.” Puck shrugs. “Okay, some place public. How soon?” 

“I think I want Alexys back in Cinci before I set anything up,” Finn says. 

“She may need to go back for her own safety, let’s be real here,” Puck says. “We could set up to visit her or her to come back after you talk to Carole.” 

Finn nods. “Yeah. We can talk to her tomorrow about when she can come back, _if_ she wants to come back.”

“Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t want to come back and visit us?” Puck says. 

“Probably a lot of people, if they had to eat my cooking.”

“Then I’ll cook breakfast,” Puck says. “Other than _that_ , who wouldn’t want to?” 

“Nobody. We’re the best,” Finn says. He yawns. 

“Sleepy?” Puck asks, reaching to turn off one lamp. 

“Oh yeah,” Finn says.

“Let’s go back to sleep,” Puck says, tugging Finn towards the pillows. Finn flops down half on top of Puck. Puck tugs the blankets around them and then reaches for his other lamp, turning it off. “You going to be able to stop thinking?” 

“Ugh,” Finn says, smushing his face into the side of Puck’s neck. “I hope so.”

“If you can’t fall asleep fast, wake me up and I’ll jerk you off again.” 

“I can’t fall asleep fast.”

Puck chuckles. “You don’t want to make me wake up, huh?” 

“Why would I want to wake you up when I already know I can’t sleep?” Finn asks. 

“You just want the hand job,” Puck says, sliding his hand between the two of them and resting his palm on the front of Finn’s hip. “Don’t you?” 

“Yup.”

“You’re so honest,” Puck says almost admiringly. He slides his hand under Finn’s waistband and drags his fingers over Finn’s skin. “Upstanding young man.” 

“Yeah, that’s why you like me so much,” Finn says. 

“Mmhmm,” Puck says, kissing Finn. 

When they fall asleep—and Finn _is_ able to fall asleep surprisingly quickly—they sleep hard and peacefully, with no additional shouting in the night. Even though it’s late morning when they wake up, Alexys’s door is still shut and the room silent. 

“Poor thing,” Puck says quietly. “I’ll start on some waffles.” 

“I’m glad she’s getting some rest, at least,” Finn says. 

“Maybe she doesn’t get good sleep at home,” Puck says. “I mean, it’s great to share costs with three other people, and she seems to like it, but that’s a lot of people in a two bedroom space.” 

“Two people a room, though. That’s not too bad, right?”

Puck grins as he pulls out a bowl. “No, it’s not too bad.” 

“I mean, it’s okay to have your own rooms, too,” Finn says. “Maybe she and Sam would like their own rooms if they could afford it.”

“I figure it’s more like, the odds of all four people being quiet at the same time are low.” 

“I’m glad we don’t have two more roommates.”

“I’m enough for you?” 

Finn smiles. “Yeah, you’re plenty for me.”

Puck smirks a little, like he’s thought of something he finds funny, and then pulls out more things from the cabinets. “Waffles plenty for you, too, or should we do some eggs with them?” 

“I always like eggs,” Finn says. “Do we have any turkey bacon left?”

“I think we’ve got half a package, maybe,” Puck says. “It’s enough if we’ve got waffles and eggs, too.” 

“You’re a natural born homemaker, Puck,” Finn says. 

“Does that mean you’re buying me aprons for Hanukkah?” Puck asks. 

“Only if you’ll let me get you some matching oven mitts, too,” Finn says. 

“Oven mitts are just practical!” 

“Some hot pads to round out the whole outfit.”

“Is this a secret long-held desire of yours?” Puck asks, eyebrows raised as he grins. 

“Coordinated kitchen with a coordinated cook in it?” Finn says. “Oh yeah. Totally.”

“I knew it,” Puck says with a shrug. “You get to be the assistant to the cook that way. Also coordinated.” He nods towards the refrigerator. “Hand me the half-and-half and the buttermilk, would you?” 

“Sure.” Finn gets the half-and-half and buttermilk from the fridge and passes them to Puck. 

“Maybe you should get your own set of hot pads, then, come to think of it,” Puck says. 

“We could get matching ones. Same color, different pattern, or same pattern, different color.”

“Same pattern, different but complementary color,” Puck says. “And two dishtowels.” 

“Those can match, too,” Finn says. “We can get some that—” He breaks off when he realizes that Alexys is watching them from the doorway into the kitchen, looking amused. 

“Go on,” Alexys says, a tiny smile on her face. 

“We’re just making breakfast,” Finn says. 

“What’re we having?” Alexys says, stepping more into the kitchen. 

“Waffles, turkey bacon, and eggs,” Puck says. 

“Don’t worry. Puck’s a good cook,” Finn says. “Not like me. My waffles turn out kinda…”

“Tough,” Puck says. “They’re like scrappy little fighters who are hardened by life.” 

“That’s colorful,” Alexys says, laughing. 

“Yeah, I was just going to say they turned out kinda brick-like,” Finn says, “but I like Puck’s description better.”

“Irish waffles,” Puck says as he nods. “Alexys, you and Finn can arm-wrestle over who showers while breakfast cooks.” 

“Nah, you can have the shower first,” Finn says to Alexys. 

“Don’t eat all the waffles,” Alexys warns him before walking towards the bathroom. 

“He’ll try!” Puck calls after her. 

“I just didn’t want to have to arm-wrestle her,” Finn says. “I’m pretty sure she would’ve beat me.”

“More motivated than you, probably.” Puck measures and mixes for a bit, then puts the empty measuring cups into the sink. “A lot of change and a lot of potential change,” he says. 

“Yeah?” Finn asks. 

Puck shrugs. “I mean, Alexys existing is a change in a way. And dealing with your mom, and if we really did get Alexys to move up here…” He trails off and shrugs again. 

“But it would be a good change, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Puck says, nodding as he pours batter onto the waffle iron. “I’m just checking in with you.” 

“I’m okay, I think,” Finn says. “Mostly okay. I’m okay with the Alexys part of it, anyway.”

“Well, yeah, I didn’t figure the stuff with your mom was great to learn,” Puck says. “Anything else?” 

“I still feel really guilty about everything that happened to her,” Finn says. 

“Yeah.” Puck nods. “Yeah, me too, really. I think that’ll take awhile to fade.” 

“I’m really glad I’ve got you to help me with this stuff, though. If I had to figure it all out by myself, I don’t even know if I’d’ve met Alexys at all. I might have just kept not answering the phone.”

“Eventually you would have answered it,” Puck says. He flips the finished waffles onto a plate and pours more batter. “But me too.” 

“Cool,” Finn says.

Puck laughs. “Yeah, it is.” He turns towards Finn, back to the waffle iron. “Do you—” 

“All clean!” Alexys says suddenly from behind Finn. “It’s time for my waffles, right?” 

“I guess you’d better serve my new sister some waffles while I go have a shower,” Finn says. 

“I’ll keep cooking waffles,” Puck agrees. 

Finn smiles at Alexys as he passes her on the way out of the kitchen, then he puts himself into the shower and washes in the most efficient way he can manage in order to shorten the wait time between showering and eating waffles. He’s already out of the shower and toweling off when he realizes Puck was in the middle of asking him something before Alexys came in. When he gets back to the kitchen, Puck is standing at the stove scrambling eggs and Alexys is halfway through a ridiculously large stack of waffles, seated at their small kitchen table. 

“You have to wait on waffles,” Puck says. 

“I see that Alexys has all the waffles made in the whole history of waffling,” Finn says. 

“I haven’t had homemade waffles in _years_ ,” Alexys says through a mouthful. 

“They’re the best, aren’t they?” Finn asks. “I want to get one of those waffle makers that makes the waffles shaped like the Death Star.”

“That’s what the hot pads should look like!” Puck says. 

“To go with the waffle maker. I bet they sell aprons, too!” Finn says. 

“Cookie cutters,” Alexys says. 

Finn laughs. “Yeah, now we’re getting hella domestic.”

“You like the waffles,” Puck says, handing Finn a plate. 

“I love the waffles,” Finn agrees. 

“Hmmm,” Alexys says. 

“You don’t love the waffles?” Finn asks her. 

Alexys swallows and grins at him. “I love the waffles. I’m thinking, is all.”

“About what?” Finn asks. 

“Oh, life,” Alexys says, still grinning. 

“Eat your waffles, ma’am,” Puck says, putting a plate of turkey bacon and scrambled eggs down beside Alexys’s waffles. 

“Do I get bacon and eggs?” Finn asks. “You know if I have to cook my own eggs, I’ll burn them.”

“You get bacon and eggs,” Puck promises. “Eggs are already ready, bacon’s cooking.” 

“Unless I steal the eggs,” Alexys says. 

“Don’t steal my eggs, you egg-stealer!” Finn says. 

“That’s how I’m putting Alexys in my phone,” Puck says. “Under ‘Egg-Stealer’.” 

“I’m putting her under ‘New Sister’.”

“I wanted to be ‘New Egg-Stealing Sister’!” 

“We’ll both have to update her contact information,” Finn says to Puck. “Would that file her under N for ‘New’ or E for ‘Egg’ or S for ‘Sister’?”

“S for ‘Sister’,” Puck says. 

“There you go, then, Alexys. You’re going in our phones under S,” Finn says. 

“Awesome,” Alexys says, waggling a forkful of egg in Finn’s direction. 

“Now you have eggs and bacon,” Puck says, setting Finn’s plate down and then his own plates. “If Alexys and you left me any syrup.” 

“There’s still some,” Finn says. “Not a ton, but some. Thanks for the eggs and bacon!”

“You owe me,” Puck says, raising his eyebrows at Finn. 

“I’ll go to the store and buy more syrup later, I promise,” Finn says. Puck shakes his head, and Alexys snorts. “What?”

“Not that kind of owe,” Puck says as he pours syrup on his waffles. 

“Well I know you don’t mean I owe you cooking the next meal, because you don’t like my cooking any more than I do,” Finn says. 

“I bet he can tell you in detail what you owe him, after I’m not in the room,” Alexys says, and Puck nods. 

“She’s a smart one, Finn.” 

“Ohhhhhh,” Finn says, turning a little red. “Okay.”

Alexys grins. “Which, I do have to work this evening.” 

“What time do you need to leave?” Finn asks. 

“Three or so?” Alexys guesses. 

“Do you want a tour of Lima or something?” Finn asks. 

“Not a Chamber of Commerce tour, but you two could show me, I don’t know. Where you met, your high school, that kind of thing?” 

“Oh my god, Puck!” Finn says. “We could take her to see the glee club!”

Puck grins. “She could meet Jake.” 

“Jake?” Alexys says. 

“Puck’s surprise half-sibling,” Finn says. “He got his while we were still in high school.”

Puck shrugs as he nods. “He’s younger than you. I think he’ll get a kick out of it.” 

“Does _everyone_ in Lima have a surprise half-sibling?” Alexys asks. 

Finn considers it for a second. “Well, Kurt doesn’t yet, that I know of. He’s just got me, and that was still more of a surprise for me than for him.”

“He’s not in Lima anymore, though,” Puck says. “Maybe he doesn’t get one because he moved away.” 

“Maybe it’ll just take longer for his to find him,” Finn suggests. 

Alexys laughs, covering her mouth. “Maybe you should fake him out.” 

“You want to call him and pretend to be _his_ surprise sister?” Finn asks. 

“Figure out what would freak him out the most, and we’ll do it the next time I visit,” Alexys says. 

“Awesome!” Finn says, holding up his hand for a high five. Alexys laughs and gives him the high five, and Puck laughs a little too. 

“He won’t know what hit him,” Puck says. 

“A surprise sister, that’s what,” Finn says. “Technically, she _is_ his surprise step-sister.”

“Never a dull moment, either,” Puck says.

“Let’s finish breakfast and do the tour, then,” Finn says. 

“I get to shower, _you_ get to clean up.” 

“Okay, yeah, that’s fair,” Finn says.

When they’re all done eating, Finn starts washing the dishes. Alexys clears the table, wiping it off once it’s free of plates and utensils. They don’t talk while they work, but it’s a nice kind of silence, like what Puck calls ‘two different good books silence’. The kitchen is clean by the time Puck’s shower stops. 

Puck reappears after about ten minutes, hair slightly damp. “Ready?” 

“Yeah, we’re good,” Finn says. “Alexys is a master of breakfast clean up.” Alexys stretches her hands in front of her, flexing her fingers, and nods. 

“She should ride with us, like we’re the hired help,” Puck says. 

“I like it,” Finn says. “Let’s go show off our small and strange town.”

Once they’re all in the jeep, Puck turns to Finn. “Where should we go first?” 

“We should swing by McKinley and show her off to Mr. Schue.”

“Make him guess who she is,” Puck says as they pull out of the lot. 

“Clearly I’m CIA,” Alexys says. “Right?” 

“Technically we’re supposed to get visitor stickers from the front office, but I never do,” Finn says. 

“Are you serious?” Puck asks. “I didn’t even know that.” 

“Yeah, without a sticker we could just be random adults roaming the halls to abduct students,” Finn says. “Though if you were going to abduct a student, the smart thing to do would be to get a sticker first.”

“Yeah, I don’t think a sticker or not a sticker would really keep someone from abducting someone,” Puck says. 

“This is sort of like a reverse abduction,” Alexys says. “Taking someone else onto the campus.” 

“Smuggling you _into_ class,” Finn says. 

“How do we get written up for this crime?” Puck asks. “We should ask Schue about that.” 

“Hopefully no write-ups,” Alexys says. “Wow, this is your high school?” 

“Yeah, this completely unimpressive building is where we spent four years of our lives,” Finn says. “We can go in through the quad and not have to go past the attendance office. It leads right into the hall near the glee room.”

“It’s so sprawling,” Alexys says as they climb out. “Most of the schools I went to were downtown or close enough to downtown that they were just one building. Only a couple of entrances.” 

“One thing Lima has is space, I guess,” Puck says. 

“Just around the side here,” Finn says, pointing in the direction of the quad. They all walk down the stairs together. The quad is pretty empty, because it’s still cold out, but a cluster of three very determined-looking kids are playing some sort of fancy card game at a table. The kids don’t even look up as Finn, Puck, and Alexys walk past and into the building. 

“We sang out here once,” Puck tells Alexys. “Attempted to rap, even.” 

“You two?” Alexys says doubtfully.

“He did say ‘attempted’,” Finn says. 

“And we didn’t try again,” Puck says. 

“You should,” Alexys says deadpan. 

“We really shouldn’t,” Finn says. “Like really, really shouldn’t.”

“But I didn’t get to see it!” Alexys says. “And I should have had that opportunity!” 

“I don’t think it should be considered an opportunity. It’s more like a threat,” Finn says. 

“I think it’s a threat to us, ’cause she probably wants to video it,” Puck says. Alexys whistles.

“Aaaaaanyway,” Finn says. “That’s Schue’s classroom right there.” 

“Will he get mad at being interrupted?” Alexys asks. 

“Schue is always glad to be interrupted,” Puck says. 

Finn knocks on the classroom door. Schue’s face appears in the small window, looking pleasantly surprised to see Finn there. The door swings open, revealing a classroom half-full of students. 

“Finn, Puck, what a nice surprise!” Schue says. “And you brought a friend.”

“Oh, she’s not just a friend,” Puck says innocently. 

“Puck!” Alexys says, making a face. 

“Oh, a girlfriend?” Schue asks. 

“Uh, no. Definitely not a girlfriend,” Finn says.

Schue looks at Alexys curiously, squinting his eyes. “A… cousin?”

“Close, but no,” Finn says.

“This is a fun game,” Puck says, looking past Schue into the classroom. “Hey, Jake.” 

“Hey, Puck,” Jake says. “Is that girl Finn’s sister?” 

Schue looks shocked. “Finn, I had no idea you had a sister!”

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” Finn says, “but I do, and her name is Alexys with a y. Alexys, this is Mr. Schue.”

“Wow!” Schue holds out his hand for Alexys to shake it. Alexys takes his hand almost hesitantly. Schue takes it and shakes it vigorously. “It’s great to meet you Alexys.”

Finn appreciates that Schue doesn’t ask where Alexys came from or how Finn met her. “We don’t know yet if she’s awesome at singing, but probably she is.”

“She wanted us to rap for her, though, so that’s a little sketchy,” Puck says. “We’re giving her the Lima tour.” 

“Well, I hope she enjoys everything our city has to offer,” Schue says. Finn resists the urge to laugh, because mostly what Lima has to offer is boringness and breadsticks. 

“Town, anyway,” Puck says. “What’re you singing this week?” 

“Oh, we’re doing Stevie Wonder this week!”

“Themes?” Alexys asks, and Puck nods. 

“You sing yet, Jake?” 

“Yeah, sorry you missed it,” Jake says. “That’s too bad.”

“We probably have time for you to perform it again if you wanted,” Schue says to Jake.

“Oh, no. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the class,” Jake says. 

“But I could even video it,” Puck says. 

“I’m gonna take a hard pass on that one, big bro,” Jake says. “So, Finn’s sister, do _you_ want to sing some Stevie Wonder?”

“Um, no,” Alexys says, looking a little wide-eyed as she looks at Finn. 

“I thought we’d ease her into the singing thing,” Finn tells Jake. 

“You have to sing if you’re related to Finn,” Jake tells Alexys. 

“But not _today_ ,” Finn stresses. “Maybe some time in the future, if she wants.”

“Would the three of you like to stay and hear a few performances?” Schue asks. 

“Alexys is on a tight schedule,” Puck says quickly. 

Schue looks disappointed, but then he puts on a big, doofy smile. “Well, it was still a pleasure to meet you, Alexys. Any member of Finn’s family will always be welcome at McKinley and the glee club.”

“Hey!” Jake says.

“You were already welcomed into the glee club,” Schue tells Jake. 

“That still sounds a lot like favoritism,” Jake says. 

“And on that note…” Finn says, making eye contact with Puck and jerking his head towards the door. 

“We’re all part of one big happy New Directions family, Jake,” Puck says, “but the three of us are heading on to the next stop on the tour.” 

“You come back again any time, Alexys,” Jake says, with a big, flirty grin at her.

Finn scowls at Jake. “She’s seeing somebody, dude.”

Jake shrugs. “I was just telling her she can come back any time.”

“Bye,” Puck says, ushering Finn and Alexys out the door. As soon as it closes, he shudders a little. “I am really glad you’re seeing somebody because that’d be _too_ weird.” 

“Yeah, we could end up as brother-in-laws or something. That would be the worst,” Finn says under his breath as they walk down the hall. “That’s practically related.”

“Right!” Puck says. “Okay, Alexys, any other places you want to be sure to see?” 

“Where _did_ you two first meet?” 

“The field’s over in Shawnee at the elementary school,” Finn says. “Which school was it, Puck?” 

Puck shrugs. “I don’t know. I just remember the dugouts.” 

“The dugouts?” Alexys says. 

“Yeah, there was this bench with all this graffiti,” Puck says. 

“I bet the field would look really small to us now,” Finn says.

Puck snorts. “ _I_ look really small to you now.” 

“Yeah, but that’s ’cause you’re really small.”

“Hey!” 

Alexys laughs. “Take me to the small field so I can marvel at it.” 

“Well, Puck? Let’s take my sister to the field!” Finn says. 

“I’d say ‘aye, aye, captain’, but I’m not sure you’re a captain, and we’re definitely not on a boat,” Puck says. He leaves the high school lot and gets on the interstate going south, then off in Fort Shawnee. “I’ll just drive up and down a few streets.” 

“That’s probably all anybody needs to see,” Finn agrees. 

“Plus I don’t remember which street is which,” Puck admits. “Oh, hey!” He stops across from a baseball field. “I think that’s it.” 

“Which dugout?” Alexys asks. 

“Different ones at different games, depending on if our team was home or away,” Finn says. “The game we punched each other I think my team was in that one.” He points at the away team’s dugout. 

Alexys stares out the window for about a minute, looking around, and then she smiles sort of wistfully. “Did they ever let girls play in your little league?” 

“Yeah,” Puck says. “Bet you were a slugger.” 

“Nah, she’s so tall, she’d be a great pitcher, I bet,” Finn says. “Right, Alexys? Could’ve played quarterback, too. We have good arms in the Hudson family.”

“Forward on the basketball team,” Alexys says. 

“I am… less good at basketball,” Finn says. 

“He’s terrible,” Puck says. “He forgets about dribbling.”

“Oh no,” Alexys says, laughing. 

“You can tuck a football under your arm!” Finn protests. “It’s easy to get confused!”

“He really was better at football,” Puck says. “Probably still would be, if we found a game.” 

Finn shrugs. “Eh. I’m out of practice.”

“That part’s easy to pick back up.” Puck starts the jeep rolling forward again. “Anywhere else we should take her?” 

“I could— would it be weird if I showed you my old house?” Finn asks. 

“No, that’d be cool!” Alexys says almost immediately. 

“That, I know where it is,” Puck says. 

“Somebody else lives there now,” Finn explains. “It was too small for everybody.”

“After Carole got married again,” Puck continues. “Next time you come visit, we should show you the wedding video. The entire glee club sang.” 

“You all sang?” Alexys says. “Sang what?” 

“Oh man, don’t tell her about all the singing!” Finn says. 

“The processional, at the reception,” Puck says, grinning at Finn. “Come to think of it, I think maybe that’s what you owe me. How many years, and you’ve never sung a song to _me_.” 

“Finn!” Alexys says. “Never?” 

“It’s not like I sing to everybody,” Finn protests. 

“He sang to Kurt,” Puck tells Alexys. “And Rachel, and…” He shrugs. “Probably Quinn? I can’t remember. And probably Schue, too.” 

“Finn,” Alexys says, tsking at him. “Poor Puck!” 

“I never sang to Schue! Well, other than the times we all did!”

“Some of those were your idea,” Puck points out. 

“Mostly they were Rachel’s, though,” Finn says. “You know they were.”

“All I know is I’m still waiting for my song,” Puck says innocently. 

“You should sing to him the next time I visit,” Alexys says. “So there’s an audience.” 

“Oh yeah, that’ll make it _much_ better,” Finn says, his face turning a little red. 

“Well, it will for us anyway,” Puck says with another shrug. “Pick up some lunch?” 

“Yeah. We can’t send Alexys back to Cincinnati without lunch,” Finn says. “Kewpee?”

“Sounds good. Burgers,” Puck says to Alexys, who nods. “Eventually we’ll take you to Breadstix.”


	8. A Gentlemen's Agreement, or Puck's Guide to Ghosting Your Mom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note that yes, we are still addressing (either directly, tangentially, or through implication/reference) issues pertaining to drug addiction, child abuse, and issues within the foster care system. If you feel our tags are lacking, please do let us know.

Wistful is one of those ‘fifty-cent words’, as Puck calls them, but Finn can’t describe his feeling as he watches Alexys drive away as anything other than wistful. He watches her tail lights disappear down the road and suddenly he’s back to being a guy who has a sister in another city, instead of just being a guy who has a sister. Considering Finn only spent about 24 hours with Alexys, he isn’t sure he should mention to anyone how much he already misses the sister he just met, but then again, it’s probably a sentiment Puck understands pretty well. Puck might be the only one who really gets it.

“It’s not weird that I already miss her, right?” Finn asks Puck as they walk back into the apartment. 

“Nah,” Puck says. “The way I figure it, it’s like… I knew Rebecca as soon as she was born, and sometimes she was annoying, but still we had good memories and getting to know each other. But with Jake, I missed out on some of those accumulated memories and time spent together, so you’re missing the opportunity to start catching up, when she’s not here.” 

Finn exhales a long sigh of a relief. “I _knew_ you’d get it.”

“I just had a headstart from having previous sibling experience before Jake,” Puck says. 

“I’ve got Kurt, but I don’t think it’s really the same,” Finn says. “I mean, he’s definitely like a real brother, and I love him and stuff, but it started really different, you know?”

“Yeah, and you did sort of know him before he was your brother, too,” Puck agrees. 

Finn nods. “Yeah, and it’s not like Jake had a crush on you before you knew he was your brother, though that would be kind of extra weird.”

Puck makes a face. “Please scrub that idea from your brain.” 

“Well, if you hadn’t _known_ ,” Finn says. “Like how I had no idea that Kurt would end up being my step-brother, right? So it still ended up weird.”

“Yeah, maybe families are just weird, is all,” Puck says. “I should make you still go to class this afternoon.” 

“But I have new sister withdrawal!”

“It’d help you focus on other things, responsibility, adulthood,” Puck says. 

“But I don’t wannnnnna,” Finn whines. 

“I could go get mint chocolate chip while you’re in class.” 

“Fiiiiiine,” Finn says. “I’m only doing it for the mint chocolate chip, though, not because of responsibility and adulthood.”

“Perseverance. Grit. All out.” 

“I know, I know, geez!”

Puck grins and picks up his keys, pointing to Finn’s backpack. “See you in an hour or so.” 

“Alright, alright,” Finn says as he picks up his backpack. “I’m going. See?” He puts his backpack on his back and turns to show it off to Puck. 

“I’m proud,” Puck says seriously. 

“Sure you are,” Finn says. Maybe Puck really is proud. Maybe he’s just being goofy. Either way, Finn grins at him and heads out the door again for class. 

Going to class turns out to actually be a good idea, because Finn’s brain is engaged enough that he doesn’t think about Alexys and her situation _or_ how mad he is at his mother. By the time he walks back to the apartment, though, his brain has started going over and over everything again, ‘crunching the numbers’ as Puck would put it. The numbers don’t look great from any angle, which means Finn really does need to plan his approach with Carole.

When Finn enters the apartment and drops his backpack by the door, Puck is lounging on the sofa with two spoons on the table in front of him. “Ice cream’s in the freezer,” Puck says, grinning and waving his hand towards the kitchen. 

“Awesome,” Finn says, then, “and we’ve got to talk about my mom.”

“Yeah, I know,” Puck says, straightening a little. “Lots to talk about.” 

“I’m getting my ice cream first, though.”

“Get mine too, would you?” 

“Okay, but only ’cause you bought it,” Finn says, though he really would have gotten Puck’s ice cream, anyway. Puck went the extra mile and bought Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie for Finn and Blondie Ambition for himself. Finn scoops two ridiculously huge bowlfuls for them and brings them into the living room with spoons, handing Puck his bowl. He sits down next to Puck and props his feet on the coffee table.

“Shoes off first,” Puck says. 

Finn only rolls his eyes because it’s expected of him, kicking his shoes off and flinging them across the living room to the general shoe-flinging area, which is the space of beige carpet between the door and the television. “Better?” he asks as he puts his feet back onto the table.

“Much,” Puck says, digging his spoon into his ice cream. “Now we talk.” 

“I think _actual_ murder isn’t really an option,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, I think we have to avoid that response,” Puck agrees, nodding. 

Finn eats a bite of his ice cream. “But I don’t know how much we should tell her about Alexys. I want to make her know how wrong she was, but…” He shrugs. 

“If she doesn’t know she was in the wrong when she hears the words ‘foster care’, nothing else would convince her,” Puck says. 

“It doesn’t feel right to tell her personal stuff about Alexys, though,” Finn says. “Like, she couldn’t give a shit when she was asked to give a shit, so why should she get to know now?”

“Well, yeah, but the foster care thing is probably public record or whatever it’s called,” Puck says. “And she already knew that Alexys’s mom and grandmother both died.” 

“So we just give her information she could have gotten if she had bothered to ever look,” Finn says. 

“Yeah. Use her opinion of you, you know? She’d think you were that upset over it. You can do the big weepy eyes and quivering lip thing like you used to.” 

Finn nods. “And then when she acts like she didn’t know, then _bam!_ We tell her that we know she knew!”

“Mental ambush,” Puck says with a nod. 

“Somewhere public, like I said before, so she can’t just stomp off to her room,” Finn says. 

“Maybe a restaurant where they bring the check at the end, so she can’t get up and leave easily,” Puck says. 

“We could get stuck with the check, though, so we should make sure we bring enough cash.”

“Yeah, okay, so someplace not too fancy,” Puck says. “Maybe Applebee’s, not Old City.” 

Finn nods. “I should print some stuff out and make a file. Files are always good if you need to make a point.”

“A highlighter.” 

“Those little sticky note highlighter tabs!”

“We might have to meet at a lawyer’s office if we keep adding office supplies,” Puck says. “What’s the goal? To make her feel bad?” 

Finn eats another couple of bites of his ice cream while he thinks it over. “I want her to admit what she did was wrong,” he finally says. “I want her to explain _why_. I want to know what else she decided not to tell me.”

“Okay.” Puck nods. “I get that. Do you want to have a plan in mind, for if she doesn’t do those things?” 

Finn sighs and pokes at his rapidly melting ice cream. “Not really. Not other than ‘get really mad and never speak to her again’.”

“I mean, that’s still a plan,” Puck says. “Deciding to let it go would be a plan, too.” 

“How can I let it go, though? I’m an adult. My sister’s an adult! We had a whole life of never getting to meet each other, and it wasn’t an accident. It was on purpose,” Finn says. 

“Hey, I didn’t say you _should_. Just pointing out it’s what some people would do.” 

“Yeah, but since when am I good at letting stuff go?”

Puck laughs. “I didn’t say it was the choice you’d make.” 

“Well, duh, because you _know_ me,” Finn says. “But you also know me enough to be able to tell if I’m coming at this the wrong way. You can talk me down if I need talked down.”

“You give people a chance, which is a good thing. I’d probably be tempted to ghost my mom in the same situation. Not necessarily a good way to handle it.” 

“Is it really possible to ghost a mom, though?”

“If anyone can, it’d probably be me,” Puck says, looking like he can’t decide if he should be proud or embarrassed. 

Finn laughs. “Do you have, like, a five–step guide to it or something? I don’t think I’d know where to start.”

“It’ll be my first best-seller,” Puck says. “And everyone will want to interview my mom.” 

“They’ll never know it’s actually _my_ mom you’re teaching them how to ghost,” Finn says. 

“Exactly. It’ll confuse them even more,” Puck says with a nod. 

“Have I mentioned how messed up this all is?”

“It’s super-messed up,” Puck agrees. “When do you want to do it?” 

“I think this is one of those ‘tell me if I need talked down’ times, because I sort of want to do it right now while I’m super pissed, instead of giving myself time to think about it,” Finn says. 

“I think that you’re going to be mad at yourself later on if you don’t do it pretty quickly,” Puck says. “Because you don’t really want to calm down over time.” 

“See? This is one of the best things about you,” Finn says. “You always know what the right thing for me to do is.”

Puck grins. “One of the best, huh?” 

“It’s hard to pick just one. I’ve known you too long.”

“ _Too_ long?” 

“Too long to pick just one,” Finn says. “Not too long in general.”

“Uh-huh, okay,” Puck says, grinning. “Pick your time and set it up with your mom.” 

“We should do it on Tuesday.”

“Okay,” Puck agrees. “Why Tuesday?” 

“Because Monday’s too predictable. It’s, you know. Cliche.”

“Just another Manic Monday,” Puck says, nodding. 

“Exactly!” Finn says. 

“You think she’ll show?” 

“I won’t let on, not even a hint. Why wouldn’t she want to meet her son for lunch or dinner or whatever?”

“Yeah, good point. Maybe throw in that you got a great grade on something, sweeten the pot.” 

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea!” Finn says. 

“And then if she starts to ask any other questions, tell her you have a paper due Tuesday morning, and you’ll see her Tuesday night.” 

“I’ll call her a little later, or maybe tomorrow,” Finn says. 

Puck nods. “Far enough in advance she probably doesn’t have plans, not too far in advance to make her suspicious.” 

“Sounds good,” Finn says. “So what now?”

“Hmm.” Puck shrugs and sets his now-empty bowl down, then leans back against the sofa. “Where are you at about everything that’s _not_ your mom?” 

“Like the Alexys part? She’s awesome,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Puck says. “And she is.” 

“It does kind of make me feel weird about my dad, a little.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Puck says. “That he had this… other life, I guess is a good way to put it?” 

“With another woman, and he made another kid,” Finn says. “I feel like I have no idea what he was really like. I can’t believe anything Mom told me about him.”

Puck nods, looking almost conflicted. “Maybe… I think you have to consider that nothing she told you was true, including the ‘true’ story she told you last year.” 

“What, you think he didn’t really die from an overdose?” Finn asks. 

 

“Shit, I didn’t even think of that,” Puck admits. “But it’s possible. Or maybe he didn’t leave so much as Carole kicked him out and wouldn’t let him see you, or a hundred different possibilities.” 

Finn shakes his head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t even know who I could ask. He’s a stranger. I’m never going to know him.”

“See if Alexys wants to find out more, too. You two could write to his old commanding officer or something, if you wanted to ask some questions,” Puck says. “I mean, you might like the answers, you might hate them, and the alternative is continuing like you are now, as far as what you know is concerned.” 

“Maybe he had friends. Maybe I could find them,” Finn says. 

Puck nods. “I think you’d be able to find at least a few people.” 

“I’ll talk to Alexys first. Maybe she’ll have some ideas.” Finn sets his empty bowl down on the coffee table and leans back against the sofa, slumping to the side so his head is on Puck’s shoulder. “It feels like something we should agree on together. She deserves that, I think.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan,” Puck says, sliding his arm around Finn’s shoulders. “Maybe good for both of you.” 

“Maybe I should call her in a couple hours to make sure she made it home safely?” Finn says. 

“I think you want to, and I think that’s perfectly okay.” 

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. “I can ask her about our dad then, or I could wait a couple of days. This was all a lot for her, too.”

“Yeah, no matter how much she prepared for it mentally, it’s still something new for her,” Puck says. He squeezes Finn’s shoulders. 

“New for both of us,” Finn says, burrowing into Puck’s side a little. “New for you, too. Thank you for all of this. For getting me through it.”

“I figure it’s a little bit part of the job, right?” 

“Best friend job? Or sex–friend job?”

“Best–sex friend,” Puck says. “Or maybe it’s best sex–friend.” 

“That’s definitely you,” Finn says. “You’re my best sex–friend and also my friend best at sex, at least as far as I know.”

“Were you planning on testing out other people to check?” 

Finn shrugs. “I don’t have, like, _plans_.”

“Mmm,” Puck says. “That’s good to know.” 

“I know we don’t have… an agreement or anything.”

“Yeah.” Puck squeezes Finn’s shoulders again. “We didn’t really need one last week.” 

“Do we need one now?” Finn asks. 

Puck shrugs. “I don’t know. I just know a lot changed in the last week.” 

“You got me through it, though. I got through it because of you.”

“That’s me, the getter–througher,” Puck says lightly. He kisses the top of Finn’s head. “Sometimes change is even good.” 

“Would you want an agreement? You know, if I wanted one,” Finn asks. “Like a ‘don’t have sex with other friends’ agreement?”

“It seems like it’d be one of those good changes, probably.” 

“I don’t want you to feel rushed or, like, guilty or anything.”

“Do I let guilt motivate me?” Puck asks. 

“Not usually,” Finn concedes. “I’d like it, though, as long as you’d like it. Having an agreement.”

“Yeah. I would.” 

“Cool.”

“Yeah, we’re really cool,” Puck says smugly. 

“Yeah, we are,” Finn agrees. 

“That’s probably why Alexys stayed overnight. She met us and was just like, yeah, these two? Really cool.” 

“She’s really cool, too,” Finn says. 

“She’s less jaded than I would be, in her shoes.”

“She’s a lot less mean than I probably would be, too.”

“You’re not mean,” Puck says.

“I _could_ be mean,” Finn says. “Sometimes I’m mean, and I’d be way more mean if I had to go through the stuff Alexys did.”

“Yeah, but it’s not a defining characteristic of either of you.” 

“Okay, that’s probably true.”

“Noah Puckerman is almost always right,” Puck says dramatically. 

“Is Noah Puckerman going to walk me through all the steps of ghosting my mom?” Finn asks. “Since he’s always so right about stuff?”

“Noah Puckerman is here for all your needs, ghosting and otherwise.” 

“ _All_ my needs?”

“Mmmhmm,” Puck agrees. “All.” 

“What about needs that might be part of our new agreement that we haven’t actually ever said what it was?” Finn asks. 

Puck laughs. “Is the new agreement that we’re the only ones taking care of each other’s needs that involve being naked?”

Finn nods. “Yeah, I’m kind of hoping it is.”

“Did you have one of those naked needs currently? And yeah, I think it is.” 

“I might. I’m in, you know. Turmoil. Emotional turmoil.”

“I don’t think you’re in turmoil anymore,” Puck says. “I think right now you just want to get in a bed.” 

“Not _a_ bed. _Your_ bed,” Finn says. 

“You like mine better?” 

“My bed’s kind of the sister bed now.”

“So Alexys’s bed and our bed?”

Finn’s face feels warm. “I kind of like the sound of ‘our bed’, if it’s not too fast.”

“It’s the slowest fast ever. Or fastest slow.” 

“The tortoise _and_ the hare.”

“That’s us, rewriting Aesop’s fables,” Puck says with a laugh. “What’s another one?” 

“There’s one involving grapes. Do you still hate green grapes?” Finn asks. 

“I will always hate the green grapes,” Puck promises. “I’m a consistent individual.” 

“Hmm. Then we can’t do the grapes one.”

“What about the one with the mice?” 

Finn shakes his head. “I don’t know any fable about mice.”

“Yeah, and I guess we’re either both town mice or both country mice, aren’t we?” 

“Ohhh, that one?” Finn says. “I thought that was Disney.”

“Disney steals all of their stories, basically.”

“That’s lame.”

“Or clever, depending on your perspective.” 

“Can we go back to our agreement?” Finn asks. “We should talk about that more. Or _do_ about that more.”

“Was there any other clause you wanted to add to the agreement?” 

“Could we… do more?”

Puck’s arm tightens a little. “What kind of more?” 

“I don’t know.” Finn’s face turns slightly red. “I liked what we did last night. I liked that.”

“I should make you say it,” Puck says, his tone teasing. “Probably you just mean sleeping in my bed.” 

“What? Geez, blowing you, okay?” Finn says, turning _really_ red. 

“Yeah?” Puck says, sounding happy. “You want me to blow you some, too?” 

Finn ducks his head fully into the space between Puck’s head and neck. “Maybe. Probably.”

“I mean, I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to,” Puck teases, “but I think you do want to.” Finn nods against Puck’s neck without saying anything. “Want to go to bed right now?” 

Finn nods again. “Yeah.”

“See, good change,” Puck says, slowly standing up and tugging on Finn’s arm. Finn grins as he stands up and follows Puck back to the bedroom that was Puck’s up until about five minutes ago and is now apparently _theirs_. Puck stops just inside the room and turns to grin at Finn. “You didn’t really want to get anything else done today, right?” 

“I have the whole weekend to do homework,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “Or Sunday, at least?” 

“Yeah, probably Sunday,” Finn says. 

“Sounds good to me.” Puck pulls them to the bed and kisses Finn hard. “We deserve a nice happy weekend.” 

“Maybe a naked weekend?” Finn asks. 

“Nice, happy, naked weekend. Sounds perfect.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says, already reaching for Puck’s jeans. “Definitely perfect.”


	9. Checkmate

Finn never gets around to calling his mother during the weekend, which is probably for the best, since he would have had to make the call more or less naked, and that would have been uncomfortable. Early Monday, though, before his first class, he calls her before he leaves the apartment.

“Hello? Finn?” Carole says as she answers in the middle of the second ring. 

“Hey Mom,” Finn says. He feels pretty proud of himself for not sounding even a little bit angry. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m alright,” Carole says. “How are you? I haven’t heard from you in weeks!” 

“Just school, you know? That’s kind of what I was calling about.”

“Is everything going okay?” Carole asks, suddenly sounding anxious. 

“Oh yeah,” Finn says. “I made a really great grade on a—” He pauses for a second, trying to remember if he and Puck had agreed on a paper or a test, then just decides to roll with it. “Paper! A big paper, big part of my grade.”

“Oh! Well, that’s great, sweetie,” Carole says. “I’m proud of you.” 

“Thanks. I was hoping you could meet me for dinner tomorrow night. Me and Puck, I mean, obviously.”

“Oh, wow, of course I’d love to have dinner with you,” Carole immediately says. “What time? Did you want to come to the house?” 

“I was thinking we could go out for… steaks! To, uh… Texas Roadhouse?” In retrospect, maybe he should have spent at least a _little_ bit of the weekend planning this better. 

“Steaks! It must have been an important paper, but sure, I can meet you at Texas Roadhouse,” Carole says. “Should we say six?” 

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Finn says. 

“I’ll see you then!” Carole says. “I can’t wait, sweetie!” 

“Yeah, okay, Mom. See you.”

Finn ends the call and flumps down onto the sofa. Just about a day-and-a-half and he’ll at least be able to stop obsessing about what he’s _planning_ to say. Luckily, he has class to distract him during the day, and the new agreement with Puck for night, so soon it’s late afternoon on Tuesday, and Finn is in his technically-still-his-bedroom trying to pick out an appropriate outfit for laying a guilt bomb on his mother. 

“Are you still half-dressed?” Puck yells from somewhere else in the apartment. 

“What kind of shirt do I wear?” Finn calls back. “Do I go with buttons or no buttons?”

“Are you feeling Amish?” Puck calls, then appears in the doorway. “What did you wear the last time you had dinner with your mom?” 

“Uh, a t-shirt, I guess? I’m just not sure if I should wear, like, a power outfit or something.”

“I think she’d know something was up before we ever got seated,” Puck says. “You don’t need to assert your dominance in the waiting area. Just pick a clean t-shirt that’s not too faded.” 

“Okay,” Finn says, grabbing the first t-shirt on top of his clean laundry pile. 

“And if she guesses something’s up too fast, you can always tell her about our agreement to throw her off.” Puck pauses. “Not the naked parts.” 

“Yeah, she’s definitely not hearing about the naked parts.”

“When we get back tonight, there can be naked parts,” Puck says. 

“Yeah, there can,” Finn says. He happens to glance down at Puck’s feet, then looks back up at him and raises an eyebrow. “So _I_ don’t need to assert my dominance, but you’re gonna wear the boots?”

“Maybe I’m wearing the boots for you, did you consider that?” 

“Oh yeah?” Finn asks. “Prove it.”

Puck grins. “That’s for after we get back.” 

“There’s gonna be a boots thing when we get back?”

“If you want there to be.” 

“I don’t even know what that would look like, but I think I suddenly _really_ want to find out,” Finn says. 

“Then let’s get going so we can get back,” Puck says. “With the bonus of inducing guilt in between.” 

“I don’t know if I’m really ready for this,” Finn says. “I don’t think we prepared enough. I think we need to talk about it again on the drive to make sure we have the script right.”

“Okay,” Puck says, pivoting towards the door. “What are you going to say first?” 

“I’m going to ask her to tell me more about the time my dad was in Cincinnati, like we talked about. Set up the trap so she walks into it, right?” Finn asks. 

“See, you’ve got it,” Puck says. “And do it right after the server takes our entree orders.” 

“I guess I have to make up something about the paper first, though. I mean, I did get some good grades on papers, so I have to pick one.”

“Maybe the Intro to Educational Theory one?” 

“Oh yeah, that’s a good one. I was proud of that one!”

“Tell her about that, and picking out summer classes.” 

“Smart,” Finn says. “What would I do without you?”

“Be very, very sad,” Puck says, picking up his keys and steering them towards the jeep. 

“That goes without saying, dude.”

Puck just grins and unlocks the jeep, because he insists on locking it despite its age. Finn laughs at him as they get in and buckle. “Seriously, you got this,” Puck says as they pull out of the lot. 

“Thanks,” Finn says. “You look nice, by the way. It’s not just the boots.”

“Oh, it’s a lot the boots,” Puck says, smirking slightly. 

“It’s the flannel, too. It’s the one with the green in it.”

“So?” 

“Everybody knows you wear green when you’re trying to look taller,” Finn says. “Well, maybe not everyone, but I do.”

“I was going to say, _everyone_? And all I said was _you_ didn’t need to assert dominance.”

“But you do?”

“If I do, you don’t have to.” 

Finn nods a little. “Sounds fair.”

“Maybe not to anyone but us,” Puck says, grinning again. He pulls into the Texas Roadhouse parking lot, driving around slowly before parking. “She’s already here.” 

“Damn. Straight up dominance move,” Finn says. 

“Or overly-eager parent,” Puck says with a shrug. 

“You say tomato, I say… tomato also.”

“Bloody Mary.” Puck shuts off the jeep and climbs out. “Like I said, you got this.” 

“I don’t have any other choice but to got this,” Finn says. 

“Okay, you got this _good_.”

Finn steps out of the jeep and shuts the door behind him, waiting for Puck to walk around to his side. Finn briefly takes Puck’s hand and squeezes it before letting it go so they can walk into the Texas Roadhouse. Carole already has a booth near the middle of the restaurant, and Finn and Puck slide into the seat opposite Carole. Carole smiles at them, almost automatic-looking, her eyes moving over both of them briefly. 

“Hi, sweetie,” Carole says. “Hi, Noah.” 

“Hey Mom,” Finn says. “Did you order your drink yet?”

“Not yet, I told our waiter to come back after you got here.” 

“Great,” Finn says. 

“So how are you?” Carole says. “Tell me about this paper.” 

“It was for Intro to Educational Theory,” Finn says. “It was about Montessori education versus the standard classroom model.”

“Oh? And what did you conclude?” Carole asks. 

“He made some really good points about furniture,” Puck says. 

“That’s me. The guy with the good points,” Finn says. 

“Well, I’m so proud of you, Finn, finding an area you excel in,” Carole says. 

“Uh, thanks.”

“Are we ready to order?” the server says, suddenly appearing at the table. 

“Sure,” Puck says, ordering for both of them before nodding at Carole, who looks somewhat surprised as she orders her steak salad and a pop. 

“So, Mom,” Finn begins. 

“Are your other classes not going as well?” Carole interrupts. 

“They’re going fine, Mom. My school stuff is all fine. That’s not what this is about.” Finn looks at Puck, who nods in a way that’s probably supposed to be encouraging. “I wanted to ask you about Dad. I feel like I don’t know very much about him.”

“Oh, Finn, we talked about that last year,” Carole says. “Why bring it up again?” 

“We didn’t really talk about it. You told me, like, _one_ thing about him. I want to know more than that,” Finn says. 

“He loved music, just like you,” Carole says promptly. 

“See, but that’s the kind of stuff you’ve told me before, back before I knew the truth of what happened to him. I want to know more about what he was like during the bad time. I want to know about Cincinnati. Why did he go _there_? Why not some place else?”

“How would I know what was going on in his mind, Finn?” Carole says. “Probably because it was easy. Straight down the interstate.” 

“Where did he stay when he was there?” Finn asks. “Did he have an apartment? Did he stay in his car or with friends?”

“I have no idea. I always assumed he was on the streets in some way.” 

“So you don’t know of any friends he had down in Cinci? None at all?”

Puck bumps his knee against Finn’s, under the table, and then squeezes Finn’s thigh with his hand. Carole doesn’t seem to notice the exchange, shaking her head. 

“I don’t know why it matters, Finn. They’re likely all long dead, whoever they were.”

Finn frowns. “It matters because they knew him during a time he was really low. It matters because they were people in his life, people who might have been important to him.”

“If you’re looking for some kind of evidence that I was wrong, you’re not going to find it,” Carole says. 

“Wrong about him using drugs? I don’t think you’re wrong about that. I just want to know more about it, and I feel like you do know more and just don’t want to tell me,” Finn says. This time, he’s the one who puts his hand on Puck’s leg. 

“Why on earth would you think that?” Carole asks as the server puts down their drinks silently, then walks away. 

“Because I have proof, okay?” Finn says. 

“Proof? Proof of what?” Carole says, a little more of an edge to her voice. 

“Proof that you knew about people he knew, people he stayed with.”

“What are you talking about, Finn?” Carole’s voice gets higher and more brittle, and Puck bumps their knees together again. Finn takes a deep breath and squeezes Puck’s leg.

“Alexys, Mom,” Finn says. “I’m talking about Alexys.”

“Wh—I don’t—That’s—” Carole says, her face going pale. She takes several deep breaths. “Are you saying that… that _child_ has you believing her mother’s lies?” 

“She’s not a child. She’s eighteen. She’s my _sister_ ,” Finn says. 

“No she is not,” Carole says. 

“Yeah, Mom. She is,” Finn says firmly. “I know you know she is.”

“She may have convinced you that the two of you share some genetic material, but that doesn’t make her your sister,” Carole says. 

“Uh, _yeah_ , it does. And she definitely shares genetic material with me, Mom. She looks like me. She’s tall like me. She’s— there’s a lot in common, okay? I like her.”

“No doubt there’s genetic material,” Puck agrees. “Even a few quirks that neither of them probably see.” 

“You _met_ her?” Carole asks, clearly outraged. 

“Yeah, I did, and she’s really cool. She’s also been through a lot,” Finn says. 

“Oh? She told you some kind of pity story, no doubt, then asked you for how much? A few hundred? A few thousand?” 

Finn exhales slowly so he doesn’t stand up and yell. “No, she didn’t ask me for any money. She didn’t ask me for anything at all, other than to meet me, and she actually gave _me_ something.”

Carole rolls her eyes. “What? ‘Insight’ into your father?” 

“No, Mom. Letters.”

Carole freezes, and Puck leans in to whisper in Finn’s ear. “Checkmate.” Finn manages to repress a smile. 

“Well?” Finn prompts. “Do you want to talk to me about the letters?”

“It doesn’t matter what kind of letters she has of your father’s,” Carole says, clearly making something up on the spot. 

“Letters to you. Letters _from_ you.”

Carole is quiet for a long time, long enough for the server to bring their food, long enough for Puck’s gentle thigh squeeze to become more like a mini-massage. “Were they typed?” she finally says. 

“They were hand-written in your handwriting, Mom.”

Carole’s nostrils flare in and out repeatedly. “And I suppose you’ve made up your mind, then?” 

“This is why we’re having this conversation. I want you to explain it to me,” Finn says. “I want you to tell me in your words what happened.”

“ _Nothing_ happened, aside from that girl and then her mother trying to horn their way in on the money they thought we had, on our _life_ ,” Carole says. “Can you imagine, if I’d said yes to some cute little playdates?” 

“Yeah, I _can_ imagine, actually. I might have gotten to meet my sister before we were both adults,” Finn says, his volume slowly rising. 

“Purported sibling.” 

“She’s his sister,” Puck says firmly. 

“You didn’t _need_ a sibling!” Carole insists. 

“What about what Alexys needed?” Finn asks. “You didn’t help her mom when she was trying to get sober. You didn’t help Alexys when her mom died. You didn’t help her when her grandmother died. Mom, she was in foster care, but she had a brother right here in the same state. Doesn’t that sound messed up to you?”

“Half-brother, at best, and that didn’t mean I had any obligation to any of them whatsoever!” Carole says. “You had a good happy life with your friends.” 

“While she had a sad, lonely life in the system. That wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to me for you to keep her away from me!” Finn says. 

“I did what was _best_ for you, even if you can’t see it now,” Carole insists. 

“Maybe I should have had Mom put Rebecca in foster care?” Puck says, raising an eyebrow. “That’s how you sound, Carole.” 

“Or Jake, right? Because it’s been terrible to have Jake in your life, hasn’t it?” Finn says to Puck. “Having another sibling really wrecked your life.”

“Definitely, look at me being so maladjusted,” Puck says. 

“That’s not the same, and you know it!” Carole says. 

“It _is_ the same! Puck’s mom got cheated on, just like you, and Puck didn’t know about Jake, just like me, and they’re happy to be in each other’s lives, just like me and Alexys!” Finn says loudly. 

“I—” Carole closes her mouth abruptly, glaring furiously at Finn. “How dare you!” 

“Is that not true?” Finn asks. “Is that not how it happened? Because it sounds like that’s how it happened.”

“You’re so _callous_!” 

“Me? _Me?_ ” Finn slaps his hand on the table. “I’m callous? You lied to me about my father for years! You kept my sister from me! You let her go into foster care because, what, you were butthurt? You let her suffer because you were _embarassed_?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Carole says. “You don’t know what it’s like.” 

“And you don’t know what it’s like to find out your own mother let your sister end up in the foster system because it was more important to her to _lie_ to you than to think about what’s best for the _kids_.”

“Think about what people would have said about you,” Carole says. “Can’t you see that I was protecting you?” 

“They wouldn’t have said anything twice,” Puck says. 

“And I wouldn’t have cared anyway if it meant having a sister,” Finn says. 

“ _I_ cared, for you,” Carole says. 

“You were selfish. It wasn’t about _me_ ,” Finn says. “It was about _you_!”

“Of course it was about you. It was about both of us, what we’d have to live with,” Carole insists. 

“So you really think you didn’t do anything wrong?” Finn asks. He looks at Puck, shaking his head. 

“What would you have had me do, Finn? Prioritize a woman in Cincinnati and her child over us, over you?” 

Puck shakes his head, leaning towards Finn. “She can’t see it,” he whispers to Finn. 

“Alexys is my sister,” Finn says as he turns back to Carole. “She _is_ in my life now.”

“Why would you do this?” Carole asks. “Why would you be so hurtful?” 

“You had no problem being hurtful, so why should I?” Finn asks. 

“I was protecting you, protecting us.” 

“From a little girl with no parents? Jesus, Mom, how weak do you think I am that you need to protect me from that?” 

Puck’s mouth is even closer to Finn’s ear than before when he whispers. “Not you. All her.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says to him, not really bothering to lower his voice. “I definitely see that now.”

“Stop whispering about me!” Carole demands. 

“I’m not whispering,” Finn says. 

“I said, it wasn’t about Finn, it was about you,” Puck says. “Which makes me wonder how an adult puts herself over a small child.” 

“That’s not what happened,” Carole says. 

“It’s exactly what happened, Mom,” Finn says. “Just admit it. Admit you let my sister grow up in foster care because of your stupid pride.”

“She wasn’t my responsibility!” 

“She should have been if you were a decent person. You should have done it for me, even if you didn’t want to do it for her!”

“You were punishing a child,” Puck says calmly. “Were you punishing her for her mom, or for her dad?” 

“You two are twisting everything around. She wasn’t my child!” 

“She was dad’s child, though, and you just couldn’t stand that, could you?” Finn asks. “You couldn’t even let me know about her, let alone have a relationship with her. You’re just selfish, and— and petty!”

“You didn’t need to know!” 

“Well, obviously I _did_!” Finn shouts. Everyone around them in the restaurant goes quiet and turns towards their table. Puck raises both eyebrows and looks around the room at all of them. Eventually, they all turn away, looking down at their food, and when the last person looks away—a woman who looks like she’s around Carole’s age—Puck smirks a little and turns back to Finn. 

“Go on,” Puck says. 

“You kept me from knowing my only sister for eighteen years!” Finn says, not particularly quieter. “She lost everybody in her family, everybody who cared about her, and I was here with you lying to me my whole life, and all you can say was that I didn’t need to know? Well, I did need to know, and she needed _me_!”

“She wasn’t your responsibility either, Finn! This is exactly why I protected you,” Carole says. “You weren’t capable of realizing what it all meant. You still aren’t.” 

“I’m not stupid, Mom, or naïve. You could have started having conversations with me about this years ago, but you didn’t. You chose to lie. That was your choice,” Finn says. 

“She wasn’t lying to you, not at first,” Puck says. “She lied to everyone around her, about your dad. That’s why she never told you, I bet. You might expose the lie.” 

“I don’t think it was ever about me at all,” Finn says, shaking his head. He’s breathing heavily, and every word is a fight not to shout. He puts his hand on top of Puck’s where it’s resting on his thigh. 

“You care if I ask a few questions?” Puck says to Finn. Finn shakes his head. Puck turns to look at Carole. “Did he go to Cincinnati really, or was it more that he went there after he left you?” 

Carole gasps, her mouth falling open as she stares at Puck. “I don’t— I don’t know what you mean!” 

Finn wraps his fingers around Puck’s hand and squeezes gently. “You know what he means,” he manages to say without actually yelling. 

“You were covering things up,” Puck says. “Simplest explanation is usually right.” 

“You have no right!” 

Finn raises the hand not currently on Puck’s. “I have a right.”

“And he said I could, so ergo,” Puck says. 

“Yeah, Mom, _ergo_ ,” Finn says firmly. 

“No one had to be the villain, that’s the sad thing,” Puck says. “Sometimes life doesn’t go the way you thought it would. Didn’t have to be this thing you created.” 

“I was only ever protecting you, Finn, surely you see that.” 

“No,” Finn says, shaking his head. “I don’t see that. I don’t see that at all.”

“Give it some time, you’ll understand,” Carole says. 

“No, I won’t,” Finn says. 

“Of course you won’t, if you continue letting her tell you stories designed to turn you against me! But if you’re rational about this, you’ll understand.” 

“She didn’t have to tell me stories. I read your letters. They were mean. They were cruel,” Finn says. “I was _so_ disappointed in you.”

“You? In me?” 

“Maybe _we_ should be the ones to leave,” Puck says softly to Finn. 

“Yeah, I think you’re right, Puck. I don’t think this is going anywhere,” Finn says. 

“I’ll even leave some cash,” Puck says, reaching into his pocket. 

“What are you doing?” Carole demands. 

“Leaving,” Finn says. 

“Please don’t call,” Puck adds as they slide out and he lays some bills on the table. 

“I’ll call as I please!” 

“See ya,” Finn says, giving a flippant wave in Carole’s direction as they start to walk towards the exit. Puck suppresses a laugh, grabbing Finn’s hand as soon as they reach the parking lot. 

“My god,” Puck says. 

“Oh man, that was bad, that was so, so bad,” Finn says, stuck halfway between laughing and maybe crying. “That was terrible.”

“It was like a fucking cliche, even!” Puck says. “We should have recorded it. No one will ever believe us.” 

“I can barely believe it.”

“She’s so sure she’s _right_. That’s the mind-boggling part of it, I think,” Puck says, pulling Finn closer. 

“Like, I get it, a little, that she didn’t want Alexys to live with us, but there’s just no reason why we couldn’t have been in touch with her, helped her,” Finn says. “It’s just mean. Those letters were mean.”

“I’m sorry,” Puck says. “I wish she’d had a reason. Something we couldn’t have dreamed of before walking in there.” 

“Yeah, but she didn’t. She’s just selfish.”

“And that sucks.” Puck sighs. “You want to go home, or you want to go get ice cream or doughnuts or something first?” 

“Can we go through a drive-thru and get a milkshake?” Finn asks. 

“Sounds good to me,” Puck says, unlocking the jeep when they reach it. “We can get fries, too, if you want.” 

“Yeah.”

“We can go to Dairy King, I’ll run in,” Puck offers. 

“You’re the best,” Finn says. “Really. Thank you for all of this.”

Puck shrugs as he starts the jeep. “That was purely so you could look at my ass when I went in.” 

“Yeah, that works for me.”

“I thought it might.” Puck starts the jeep and pulls out of the lot, checking the mirror a few times. “I think she’s still in there. You think she decided to just sit and finish her salad?” 

“I hope she does and I hope it tastes bad,” Finn says. “I hope she tips well, though.”

“Unless she pockets the cash I left, the tip’s fine.”

“Good.”

Puck looks over at a stoplight and grins at Finn, and when the light turns green, he puts his hand on Finn’s thigh when he’s not shifting gears. They get to Dairy King pretty fast, and Puck cracks the windows before killing the engine. “Chocolate mint shake?” 

Finn smiles, finally relaxing for the first time since they entered the Texas Roadhouse. “Yeah. That’s awesome.”

“Now remember,” Puck says as he climbs out. “Eyes on my ass.” He walks towards the front of the Dairy King, definitely swinging his ass a little for Finn’s benefit. Finn grins and watches Puck walk all the way in.

Once Puck is inside, though, Finn lets his face fall. Bravado and anger aside, dinner with his mother was definitely disappointing. Even though he knew that what she wrote in the letters was probably exactly how she really felt, he’d kept hoping a tiny bit that she might have a better explanation. The reality just makes him feel like he’s been slapped in the face, and even angrier. 

Puck comes back out carrying two shakes and a bag within five minutes or so, and he goes to Finn’s side of the jeep, nodding at the door. Finn opens it and takes his shake and the bag. Puck grins at him, then circles around and climbs into the jeep. 

“Got us an order of chicken fingers, too,” Puck says. 

“Nice. Thanks,” Finn says. 

“Figured we could snack on it or something,” Puck adds as he pulls out of the lot. “What’cha thinking?” 

“I’m thinking my mother is an idiot,” Finn says. “All she had to do was make up a reason why, one that didn’t sound horrible.”

“She doesn’t think it does, I think. Like she thought you’d see her side, because in her mind, it was justified,” Puck says. “It sucks. I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not. Now I know for sure.”

“What do you want to do?”

“About Mom? Think about it for a day or two before I do anything else.”

“Makes sense.” Puck takes a long drink of his milkshake. “Still want the full boots experience tonight?” 

“Oh god yes,” Finn says. “I don’t even know what it’s gonna be, but am still one-hundred-percent sure I want it.”

Puck laughs. “Maybe we’ll warm the chicken fingers up later.”

“I don’t know. I might take a bite out of you if I don’t get my chicken fingers first.”

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“We’re making a bridge out of chicken fingers?” Finn asks. “That doesn’t seem structurally sound, you know.”

“The biting bridge, not the chicken finger bridge.” 

“We can totally jump off the biting bridge, if you’re into that.”

Puck stops at the four-way stop closest to their apartment, and since no one’s around, he doesn’t move right away, turning his head towards Finn and grinning. “Crossing, jumping, we’ll do something like that.” 

“At least _something_ productive will happen tonight,” Finn says. 

Puck puts the jeep back in first, and it jumps through the intersection. “Oh, that, that’ll definitely happen.”


	10. Respect the Underwear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is just a short interlude. In addition to Pride and my birthday this past weekend, Rav's having a lot of annoying medical appointments and testing and doesn't feel 100%. More non-created-by-Puck drama next chapter!

Puck’s voice is low and directly next to Finn’s ear. “I know, last night after we got home was fun, but we still have to go to class this morning.” 

“Why do you have everything that’s good?” Finn groans, grabbing the pillow out from under Puck’s head and putting it over his own. 

“It’s my job to make sure you get up,” Puck says apologetically, lifting the edge of the pillow to talk to Finn. 

“I like that job just fine when you’re doing it at night,” Finn says. “Less fun in the morning.”

“Sorry,” Puck says, and he does at least sound like he’s truly sorry. “You’ll thank me by afternoon.” 

“Okaaaaaay,” Finn whines as he finally sits up, glaring at Puck .

“There’s Hot Pockets?” Puck says placatingly. 

“There’d better be.”

Puck shrugs. “There’s something, at least. C’mon. Hump Day. We can do it.” 

“I’m up, I’m up!” Finn says, standing and looking around for his boxers on the mess that is the bedroom floor. When he finds them and a shirt that smells moderately clean, he gets quasi-dressed and heads for the kitchen and the promised Hot Pockets. Puck is in front of the microwave, tapping the empty-sounding box on the counter as the microwave counts down. 

“Three Hot Pockets,” Puck says. 

“Hot Pocket-and-a-half is probably plenty of Hot Pocket,” Finn says. 

“If you need two, I’m not super-hungry,” Puck says. 

Finn shakes his head. “Nah. I can grab lunch a little early if I get hungry later. It’s cool.”

Puck straightens and leans over to kiss Finn before the microwave beeps. “How do you feel this morning?” 

“Like I’ve got mom-hangover.”

“Do you want to get a real hangover this weekend?” Puck asks, then frowns. “Okay, maybe not the most healthy coping idea there. Anything you want to do, though?” 

Finn shakes his head again. “Not really. I mean, I want to call Alexys. Maybe we can plan to go down and visit her soon.”

“Yeah, we can go down for a weekend, maybe, and you can do your homework when she’s at work,” Puck says, nodding. “Maybe you just don’t talk to Carole for awhile?” 

“I think that’s probably the best plan, yeah,” Finn says. 

“I’m sorry,” Puck says for at least the fifth time since they left the restaurant the night before. He hands Finn a plate with his one-and-a-half Hot Pockets, along with a paper towel. “Did you want to try to go to Cincinnati this weekend?” 

“If she’s free,” Finn says. “She works a lot. We could go do other stuff, though, and see her whenever she’s available. Hey! And meet her girlfriend!”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Puck agrees. “We can go to the zoo while she’s working.” 

“Sure! I love the zoo.”

“I still haven’t been to the Cincinnati Zoo,” Puck says. “So you can show me around.” 

“Yeah. The Wolf Woods are cool, because it’s wolves and otters,” Finn says. 

“Real wolves?” Puck says. “Like the kind out in Yellowstone?” 

“I think these are from Mexico, but yeah, wolves.”

“I didn’t know Mexico had wolves!” Puck says, looking genuinely delighted. “Should we get a hotel room since Alexys already has four people in one apartment?” 

“Yeah, I don’t want to be a burden or anything. We’ll take them out to eat, too, so they don’t feel like they have to feed us,” Finn says. 

“Go ahead and call her between classes and I can find us a hotel this afternoon that way,” Puck says. “Ready for class?” 

“Well, I should put on some real clothes and brush my teeth, but otherwise, yeah.”

“What’s wrong with that shirt?” Puck asks. 

“I picked it out based on it not smelling too much,” Finn says, “from the floor.”

Puck laughs. “You have clean shirts in your drawer, you dork.” 

“I was chilly, and it was there.”

“So this summer you’ll just eat Hot Pockets naked?” Puck asks. 

“Yup,” Finn says proudly. “Living the dream.”

“Hey, you’re the one that might drop hot Hot Pockets on yourself. I’m the one that just gets to watch you walk around naked. I think _I’m_ closer to the winner in this case.” 

“Boxers only, then,” Finn says. 

“Winning less,” Puck says with a dramatic sigh. 

Finn feels all warm in his chest when he realizes what Puck is doing: trying to make him laugh. “I could get some sexy underwear for my Hot Pocket eating.”

“How do you define ‘sexy’?” Puck asks. “Because novelty boxers aren’t really my thing.” 

“Like those black and white underwear ads. The Calvin Klein ones in the magazines.”

“The smaller ones?” Puck says, putting his hands on his hips to demonstrate. “Acceptable. Yes.” 

“Yeah, like the briefs from the sexy ads,” Finn says. “I can lounge around on the sofa like they do on the beach, but with Hot Pockets.”

“Luckily they don’t just do breakfast Hot Pockets,” Puck says. “We can get you a beer for lounging for the afternoons. And a fan.” 

“It’s sexy in the morning, but I think it’s just sad if it it’s after lunchtime,” Finn says. 

“Underwear, a beer, and chips and salsa?” Puck suggests. 

“Ehhhh,” Finn says, holding up his hand and doing a “so-so” gesture.

“I’ve got it,” Puck says triumphantly. “Underwear and freezer pops.” 

“In your dreams, dude.”

“Wasn’t that what we were discussing?” 

“I’m not above making your dreams a reality, but I’m not sure I want to mix freezer pops and fancy underwear,” Finn says. “Could get messy.”

Puck grins. “Messy’s fun.” 

“Maybe not on the sofa then. Tarp, maybe.”

“Picnic blanket, on the floor,” Puck says, and he moves closer, putting his hand on Finn’s hip. “And we could make the messy part food or lube, either one.” 

Finn steps in closer to Puck. “Maybe you need fancy underwear, too.”

“So you can look at it or so you can take it off?” 

“Both?”

“Just trying to pick a price bracket. If you were planning to rip it off, I’d pay less for it initially,” Puck explains. 

“We’ll take ’em off gently and respectfully,” Finn says. 

“You don’t have to be gentle.” 

“To the _underwear_ , not you.”

“I see how it is,” Puck says, even more dramatically than usual. “You respect the underwear more than you respect me.” 

Finn bursts out laughing. “Oh my god. Yeah, that’s totally it, Puck. I respect the underwear.”

“I knew it!” Puck says. 

“Fine, I promise I’ll be rough with the underwear and extra-special gentle with you.”

“Promises, promises.” Puck kisses him. “Tell me more.” 

“I’ll rip ’em up. Tiny shreds. Not a scratch on you, though, I swear,” Finn says, stepping even closer. 

“One problem,” Puck says, pursing his lips. “We don’t have a vacuum cleaner.” 

“I will buy a vacuum cleaner just for this activity,” Finn says in his sexiest voice, then, “Wait, did I mess that up? I think vacuums maybe aren’t sexy.”

Puck laughs. “I think as long as we’re not using it during naked events, we’re probably safe.” 

“Then I’m going to buy the best vacuum I can afford at Meijer and rip your sexy underwear into tiny pieces,” Finn says. 

“The sexy underwear will probably be from Meijer, too,” Puck admits. 

“And it’ll be the— oh shit, I’m late for class!” Finn says, as he glances at the clock. “Gotta get dressed and go!”

“Oops,” Puck says, stepping back but not looking all that upset. 

“I’ll be back!” Finn says. He rushes towards his room and throws some clothes on, slapping toothpaste onto his toothbrush, and running out the door still brushing his teeth. He can stick his toothbrush in his backpack later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With a Y is going on a short hiatus and will return on November 1st.


	11. Keep

Everything feels more or less normal for the rest of Wednesday, and even through to Thursday morning. Finn gets up and goes to class on Thursday like usual. After class, though, as he walks back to the apartment, he decides he’ll call Alexys to check in and maybe let her know how the meeting with Carole went. She might be interested in knowing what was said.

After three rings, an unfamiliar voice answers, “Lexi’s phone, this is Sam.” 

“Uh. Hi, Sam,” Finn says. “This is Finn. Alexys’s—” He pauses because he isn’t completely sure what Alexys has told her girlfriend. “From Lima. Is she around?”

“Ooh, the brother!” Sam says, then her voice gets farther away. “Alexys, hurry it up! Finn’s on the phone!” 

“If she’s busy, she can call me back later,” Finn offers. 

“She’s just a little bit indisposed,” Sam says, laughing at the end of the sentence. “Give her about thirty seconds, okay?” 

“Yeah, okay, that’s cool,” Finn says. It takes closer to forty-five seconds before Alexys gets to the phone. 

“Hi!” Alexys says, sounding slightly surprised. “How are you?” 

“Good. I’m good,” Finn says. “How about you?”

“Oh, you know, working, all that,” Alexys says. 

“Work’s going okay?”

“As good as it can. It’s a union job, so it’s better than Tyler’s job for sure,” Alexys says. 

“Oh, yeah? That’s cool,” Finn says. “And everything else is good? You and Sam?”

Alexys laughs. “Yeah, you did sort of meet her, I guess. We’re good.” 

“Good,” Finn says. “So…”

“Uh-oh,” Alexys says. “Don’t tell me. There’s a tsunami coming off the lake and you’re calling to tell me goodbye before you flee?” 

“Worse. I talked to my mom.”

“Ouch,” Alexys says, and her voice sounds like she’s wincing. “Didn’t go well, I take it?” 

“Noooooo. It was a clusterfuck,” Finn says. “Worse than expected, even. Like, I didn’t even tell her any details, since I figure that’s your business, but she still had plenty to say, none of it the _right_ thing to say.”

Alexys makes a frustrated huffing noise. “So, confronted with facts she already knew, she doubled-down?” 

“Yup. She was just protecting me, blah blah blah.”

“I’m very, very scary,” Alexys says, deadpan. 

“Yeah, terrifying,” Finn agrees. “I think she’s lying to me about my dad. Our dad. I mean, she’s done it in the past. She did it my whole life, almost. I think she’s still lying about what happened to him, and why he was in Cincinnati.”

“I wish I knew more,” Alexys says. “Mom got sad whenever she talked about him, so I stopped asking long before she died, you know? I bet you did it, too. Try to be extra good so they won’t be sad.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He nods to himself, because that’s _exactly_ what he tried to do. 

“Come to think of it, though, I’ve never even looked up anything like the obituary. If you ever want to come down here, we could do that,” she offers. 

“Yeah, me and Puck were talking about coming down there, if that would be okay with you,” Finn says. “We’d stay at a hotel. Maybe you and me can look up the obituary then.”

“Sure!” Alexys says. “We can go on a double date! I mean, if you want to.” 

“Yeah, that would be cool.”

“Awesome!” Alexys says excitedly. “I can show you around here, too.” 

“I’d like that. When would be a good time for you?” Finn asks. 

“Really, it’s flexible, since work changes a lot. Plus that’d give you some time, while I’m at work,” Alexys says. “Friday nights are the only time I consistently work week to week.” 

“Okay. I’ll talk to Puck and we’ll let you know?”

“Sounds perfect,” Alexys says. “If I don’t answer, it means I’m at work and Sam’s not around.” 

“I’ll leave you a message, okay?” Finn says. “Anything you want me to bring you from stunning Lima?”

Alexys is quiet for a few seconds. “Do you have any pictures? Of Dad, or where he grew up, or anything like that?” 

“Yeah, I have a few. I can get more,” Finn says. His mom will be at work all day tomorrow. He can always go over the house then and take whatever pictures he wants. 

“That’d be great,” Alexys says, sounding relieved. “Thanks, Finn.” 

“No problem. That’s totally what brothers are for, I think.”

“Luckily for us, we get to make it up as we go,” she says. “Let me know when.” 

“I will. Take care, Alexys,” Finn says. “We’ll talk again soon.”

“Bye, Finn.” 

“Bye, Alexys.”

The call ended, Finn puts his phone back in his pocket and lets himself into the apartment. Puck isn’t in the living room, but Finn can hear him fussing around in the kitchen, so he calls out, “Hey, Puck.”

“Hey,” Puck calls back. “Class go okay?” 

“Yeah. I talked to Alexys on the way back.” Finn drops his backpack by the front door and heads into the kitchen, where Puck is attempting to nest takeout containers by size. 

“Yeah?” Puck turns and leans against the counter. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Told her a little about the meeting with Mom. She thought it would be cool if we came down to visit. Said just to give her a call when we figured out when would work for us. And, uh…”

“And?” Puck prompts, raising one eyebrow. 

“I’m maybe gonna sneak into Mom’s house tomorrow while she’s at work and get some pictures of my dad.”

“Okay.” Puck shrugs. “Why not take all of them? I mean, I guess you could leave her like, a wedding picture or something.” 

“I’m kind of hoping she won’t notice,” Finn admits. “I don’t feel like dealing with her. I’m going to go into the old albums, maybe poke around some boxes of pictures.”

Puck nods, clearly thinking for a bit. “You have all your important documents? In case she does notice, and blows a gasket?” 

“Uh, I don’t know. What documents count as important?”

“Birth certificate, Social Security card, maybe your immunizations like the college wanted?” 

“I have the Social Security card, but I’m not sure about the other stuff,” Finn says. “Should I get all of that, too?”

“I have mine in a tiny fire safe, you can put yours in there too,” Puck offers. 

“Yeah, okay. You want to come with me tomorrow? You can be my look-out,” Finn says. 

Puck grins. “Finally, we start our life of quasi-crime.” 

“I have a key and half my stuff is still there, plus she never said I _couldn’t_ come into the house,” Finn says. “I’m pretty sure the law’s on our side.”

“Hence the ‘quasi’,” Puck says, looking proud of himself. 

Finn grins. “Yeah, you did say ‘quasi’.”

“All the thrill of crime, none of the risk.” 

“We’re just going in, getting the stuff, then getting out,” Finn says. 

“That’s how all the best capers start, is all I’m saying,” Puck says. 

Finn laughs and puts his arm around Puck’s shoulders. “Yeah, this’ll be a great caper, for sure.”

The next day, Finn and Puck wait until around ten, and when Finn’s sure his mom has already left for work, they head over to the house. Finn lets them in through the front door. When they’re inside, Finn makes a beeline for the photo albums on the lower shelf of the cabinet in the living room. He kneels in front of the shelf and pulls out the first album. It starts with pictures of Carole and Christopher a few months before they got married.

“Should I take any of these?” Finn asks. He hasn’t looked at these pictures in years, and he’s surprised now by how young his dad looks. He wonders if his dad was already using drugs, or if that didn’t come until later. 

“Would you regret not having one of them later?” Puck asks. 

“Probably. I feel kind of bad, though, taking them,” Finn says. “Maybe just one?”

Puck nods. “Take one or two, leave the rest of them.” 

Finn looks at the two-page spread of pictures, then chooses one with just his dad, smoking a cigarette and grinning at the camera. He carefully peels it off the page and then reseals the plastic back down over the empty spot before flipping to the next page. The following few pages are wedding pictures—the kind taken on regular cameras, not the professional ones—and then pictures of Carole pregnant. Finn takes one of his dad in a tux and another of his dad and mom together, Christopher’s hands on Carole’s huge belly.

“These are for me,” Finn explains to Puck. 

“Your face is sort of indistinguishable in that one,” Puck jokes, pointing at the picture of Carole pregnant. Finn gives Puck his best ‘are you fucking kidding me right now?’ look and turns back to the album, flipping pages. 

“Should I get some pictures of baby me?” Finn asks. “Just to compare to Alexys’s, maybe. I for sure want a couple of Dad holding me.”

“Yeah, you’ll want those later on,” Puck says. “Want me to go find that envelope where Carole always put your school pictures? That’d be fun to compare, if Alexys has any of hers.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says, nodding his head as he keeps flipping through pictures. There’s his dad in boxers and a t-shirt, asleep on the sofa with baby Finn. There’s his dad looking too thin, dressed in an army t-shirt and fatigues and smiling at a slightly older baby Finn. There’s his dad looking even thinner and exhausted, sitting on the open tailgate of the truck Carole gave to Finn when he turned sixteen, smoking a cigarette and staring off into the distance, older baby Finn loosely held in Christopher’s other arm, sitting on his leg. 

Finn continues flipping through the album. The pictures of Christopher and Finn abruptly cut off midway through the next page, a leap from Finn’s first birthday, Christopher barely visible in the background, ghostly and partially hidden in shadow, to pictures of Finn in winter clothes, which means he’s probably almost 18 months old. Somewhere between those pictures, Christopher left, and somewhere between those pictures, he died. Because of the gap, Finn can’t tell from the pictures whether those two events happened immediately back-to-back or with space between them. 

“Found ’em,” Puck says from behind Finn. “Did you find good pictures?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says, holding up the stack of photos he liberated from the album. 

“You want me to leave any out of the school pictures?” Puck asks. “There’s multiples of some of them.” 

“I don’t know. Whichever ones you think would be good,” Finn says. “I’m going to try to find those documents. Birth certificate and vaccinations, right? Anything else?”

Puck shrugs. “See if there’s anything of your dad’s?” 

Finn nods and walks back into his mom’s bedroom. It looks more like it used to when Finn was younger, now that Burt and most of his day-to-day stuff are in Washington for part of the year. She used to keep a file box in her closet at the old house when Finn was younger, with stuff like his medical forms for playing sports in it. Finn checks on the top shelf of the much larger closet, and bingo! The same old file box sits tucked behind an extra quilt for the bed. 

Finn makes himself breathe slowly as he flips through the file folders. Some of it is paperwork for the current house, some is Carole’s personal paperwork; he ignores that completely. One folder has his name on it, so he shuffles through the fat stack of papers, pulling out his birth certificate, some medical records, and a few other forms and documents that seem important. The very back folder in the file box is just marked ‘keep’. 

‘Keep’ apparently means ‘anything to do with Christopher’, because that’s where Finn finds a copy of Carole and Christopher’s marriage license, a copy of Christopher’s birth certificate, some paperwork from the army, a copy of the short obituary after Christopher’s death, and Christopher’s death certificate. In the very back of the folder, Finn finds a plain, sealed envelope, slightly yellowed with age, with no writing or other markings on the outside. He puts that into the stack of papers, along with most of Christopher’s other paperwork, excepting the marriage license. When he’s done, he carefully returns the file box to exactly where he’d found it, tucked behind the blanket. 

“Anything else you want?” Puck says suddenly from the doorway. “In your room, even.” 

Finn shakes his head. “I took all my good stuff. It’s just old posters and books, trophies. I don’t need that stuff.”

“I’m the best trophy, anyway, and you’re taking me with you,” Puck says, grinning suddenly. 

“My trophy boyfriend?” Finn asks. 

“It’s not the worst thing.” 

“Definitely not the worst,” Finn agrees. “Probably one of the best things.”

“Come on,” Puck says, walking over and kissing Finn. “Let’s get out of here with our booty.” 

“Heh. Booty.”

“We all have to play to our strengths.” 

“Yeah, let’s go,” Finn says. He tucks his stack of photos and paperwork under one arm, takes Puck’s hand on the other side, and they walk together out of the house. 

The drive back to the apartment is quiet. Puck has always been good at reading Finn’s moods, and this is one of those obvious ‘no talking’ moods. Puck does look through the assortment of photographs and papers, silently reading some of the forms. 

“How am I so tired?” Finn asks, when they’re finally back in the apartment. “We didn’t even _do_ anything, really!”

“That’s going to put a damper on our life of crime or quasi-crime,” Puck says, shaking his head. “But you’re probably like… mentally tired.” 

“I’m definitely mentally tired,” Finn agrees. 

“You want a nap or a meal?” 

“Meal. I’m starving.” Finn drops down onto the sofa. “Did you look at all the pictures?”

“Yeah, I think I saw all of them,” Puck says, pulling out his phone as he talks. 

“What did you think?”

Puck sighs and sits down next to Finn. “I think… I think that if I didn’t know what Carole says, I’d think he left before your birthday. Came back for the party.” 

Finn nods. “He looked like he was barely there. Like a ghost.”

“And maybe he didn’t need to be your primary caregiver, like that,” Puck says. “I get that. But he disappeared before he died.” 

Finn nods again. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so, too. I think he was already in Cincinnati, maybe with Alexys’s mom. I guess he would have had to have been, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Puck says. “I remember once after Dad left, a few months in, Mom said something about how it’d be easier if he’d died, in terms of how people looked at her.” 

“Maybe so,” Finn says. “It makes sense, in a way.”

“It’s an easier narrative, the one your mom told,” Puck says. 

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“For her, anyway.” 

“And maybe she thought it would be easier for me, too, but it isn’t,” Finn says. 

“No. Definitely not,” Puck agrees. 

“What do we have to eat?” Finn asks. 

“Pizza’s coming,” Puck says, waving his phone. 

“Damn, I love you,” Finn says, and it just sort of hangs there between them as they both freeze in a moment of silence, looking at each other awkwardly. Puck waves his hand with his phone again, his mouth opening and closing again without saying a word. Finally, Finn says, “Well, I do. Not just because of pizza.”

Puck grins a little and bumps his shoulder against Finn. “Yeah. I know.” 

“Okay. Good,” Finn says. “’Cause it’s true.”

“Yeah. Me too.” 

“Good.”

“You and me, that’s all we need,” Puck says. “The rest of it’s a bonus.” 

They chill on the sofa and watch television, waiting for their pizza. After their pizza arrives, they flip through channels until finally landing on AMC and a marathon of _The Walking Dead_. Neither of them really tracks on what’s happening, since the episodes airing are somewhere in the middle of the second season and neither of them has ever seen the first season, but it’s scary and exciting enough to keep their attention, more or less. When someone starts banging on their door at around eight, both of them jump. 

“We’ve already got our pizza,” Finn says. “Was somebody coming over?”

“I can get a knife from the kitchen,” Puck says, looking from the television to the door. 

“Finn! Finn Hudson, I know you’re in there! You don’t have a class tonight!” Carole’s voice calls. 

“Oh, shit!” Finn hisses. “It’s my mom!”

“I can _still_ get a knife,” Puck offers. “Or, I don’t know. Earplugs?” 

“Let’s just be really quiet,” Finn says, sinking down lower on the couch like he might somehow successfully hide from the sound of his mother’s voice.

“Finn, open this door right now so we can discuss this!” Carole says. 

“How about no,” Finn whispers. 

“I can call the cops,” Puck says in his own low whisper. “Technically she’s trespassing.” 

“She’s just in the hall, though. I think you’re allowed to be in the hall,” Finn says. 

“I don’t remember what the lease says,” Puck says. “It could take awhile to find it. Maybe we start turning lights out in case she can see them?” 

“I know you were at the house today, Finn!” Carole calls through the door. 

“Did she install cameras or something?” Finn asks Puck. “Did you see any cameras?”

“Maybe she does that string in the door trick?” Puck says. “Did we check for strings?” 

“I didn’t. Maybe she has motion sensors?”

“And it’s not like you don’t deserve pictures!” Puck says. 

“I noticed that the albums seemed out of place!” Carole says, as if she can hear their conversation. “I know it had to be you!” 

“How long do you think it’ll take to wait her out?” Finn asks. 

“She’s persistent. At least an hour.” 

“Turn out the lights and go back to the bedroom where we can’t hear her?”

“I bet we’d still be able to hear her, but we can try to ignore her, at least,” Puck says. 

“You cannot just take photographs to show that… that… _child_ ,” Carole calls. 

“Oh yes I can,” Finn says quietly. “Can and _did_ , in fact.”

“Could you imagine if she tried to call the police?” Puck says, snickering quietly. “‘My son took pictures of his father!’” 

“I demand that you give those pictures back immediately, before she sees a single one!” Carole adds. 

“Fat chance,” Finn whispers to Puck. 

“We could have already sent her scanned copies,” Puck whispers back. “Did Carole forget email exists?” 

“This is _so_ weird.”

Finn hunches low and flips off the hallway light as they creep back towards the bedroom. “It’s like a movie,” Puck says as they cross through the doorway. 

“A weird movie,” Finn says. 

“Straight to Netflix, probably,” Puck says. 

“I don’t know what you hope to accomplish with this stunt!” Carole says, her voice fainter. 

“I hope to accomplish having pictures of my dad. Duh,” Finn says, in a more normal voice, now that they’re back in the bedroom.

“Tell her necromancy, that’ll scare her,” Puck says. “Or that you found a medium who’s going to channel for you.” 

“Gonna post ’em on the internet, Mom. Gonna share all the dirty family secrets!”

“She’d never find them there,” Puck says with a snort. 

“You and I are going to have a long conversation about this!” Carole says, her voice getting even farther away as Puck closes the bedroom door. 

“Make sure and tell her that a conversation requires more than one person to be talking,” Puck says. 

“And both people have to be telling the truth,” Finn adds. 

“I could put on some music,” Puck offers. “And then we could do other things, to help us ignore her.” 

Finn smiles. “Yeah, that works for me.”


	12. Man On the Inside

After Carole’s little show outside Finn and Puck’s apartment, she doesn’t come back and bother them again, or even try to call Finn. They end up down in Cincinnati for one night, long enough to meet Sam, for Finn to share the pictures with Alexys, and for Puck to get to go to the zoo, before they have to drive back up to Lima. It’s not much of a visit, really, but that’s probably how things are going to go for a while, Finn and Alexys getting to know each other in small bits, over time. 

By Monday, things are settling back into what Puck calls ‘relative normal’, with the added caveat that none of Finn’s relatives are all that normal. They go to Monday morning classes, eat lunch on campus, attend afternoon classes, and then catch a discount movie at Eastgate before returning to the apartment to do homework and eat dinner. Tuesday starts out as more of the same, until his phone starts vibrating unexpectedly at around three that afternoon while Finn is in class. 

Since he knows it isn’t Alexys, who now has his class schedule, Finn assumes it must be Carole, and doesn’t look at his phone until after class. He sees he has a missed call and a voicemail from Kurt, who was the last person he expected would be calling him, and while part of Finn wants to ignore the call, just in case it was his mom who put Kurt up to it, another part of him worries that maybe Burt had another heart attack and Kurt is trying to reach him because it’s an emergency. The voicemail Kurt left doesn’t offer any new information, just, “Finn, this is Kurt, call me back,” so Finn decides to take the fall on the side of Burt’s possible heart attack and return Kurt’s call. 

Kurt’s phone only rings twice before he answers. “Hang on five seconds, Finn,” Kurt’s voice says, then about five seconds do pass before he continues. “Okay, sorry, good, you called me back!” 

“Yeah, I was in class,” Finn says. “Are you okay? Is Burt okay?”

“Everyone’s fine, or at least as fine as we all know about,” Kurt says. “I’ve heard a lot in the past few days, though.” 

Finn sighs. “Yeah. I was worried about that.”

“I’m technically supposed to be talking some ‘sense’ into you,” Kurt says, “but I have no idea why they think I would do that.” 

“Oh yeah?” Finn says, startled. “I guess…”

“I imagine that they framed it in their heads as some kind of issue of maturity, since Dad was careful to appeal to my own feelings of maturity when he asked, but I don’t think maturity is at issue, whether or not they’re correct about relative maturity,” Kurt says rapidly. “I also imagine that the truth is not exactly what I’ve been told.” 

“What’ve you been told?” Finn asks. 

“That Carole… what was the quote? ‘Understandably didn’t want to tell Finn about a near con-artist and her child’.” 

“ _Hmph_. My _sister’s_ name is Alexys,” Finn says. “With a ‘y’.”

“It seemed quite odd to insist someone was a con artist, too, when there was no loss of money or ridiculous promises,” Kurt says. “But you’ve met her, right? Does she look like you?” 

“Yeah, I think she does. Puck, too. She’s really tall.”

“Puck’s met her?” 

“Yeah, she came up to stay for a night, and we went down to visit with her and Sam,” Finn says. “Her girlfriend. Not Sam Evans.”

Kurt starts laughing, snorting once. “Oh, goodness, that’s a mental image,” he says. “Which city is she in?” 

“Cinci. The bad part.”

“There are many cities in Ohio, and all of them are mostly bad part,” Kurt says dryly. “She’s younger than you, right?” 

“Yeah, a little more than a year. I think Mom wasn’t real honest about the timeline with my dad,” Finn says. 

“It’s surprising she didn’t contact you as soon as you turned eighteen, then.” 

“Yeah, well, she was in the system, you know?” Finn says. “She had to wait for herself to turn eighteen.”

“Wait, why?” Kurt asks. 

“Because there wasn’t anybody else to take her, and Mom wouldn’t help, obviously,” Finn says. 

“Was her mom in jail or something?” 

“Nobody told you?” Finn asks. “She died, man. Alexys went to live with her grandmother, but then she died, too, and there just wasn’t anybody else. Only me, and I was just a kid, too.”

“Oh my god, no, they left out _that_ piece of information,” Kurt says. “I don’t know if I’d prefer to think that Carole didn’t tell Dad that part, or that Dad left it out deliberately.” 

“My money’s on Mom, though Burt’s kind of always been on Team Mom, so I guess he might not have pushed,” Finn says. 

“Are there any other details that might have been left out, that I should know?” 

“I think my dad might have left my mom when I was still really little, and I think Mom blamed Alexys for it. Alexys is _so_ great, though, Kurt. I want you to meet her. It’s awesome to have a sister, and hey! It’s kind of like you have one now, too!” Finn says. 

Kurt laughs a little. “We won’t try to figure out the exact label on that, though. I’m sure we can all touch base the next time I’m in town.” 

“When’s that going to be, do you think?” Finn asks. 

“Probably I’ll try to come out in a few more weeks, when Dad has his final test results come in,” Kurt says. “I’ll let you know, but we should probably pretend that I’m doing what they wanted. Trying to bring you around or whatever.” 

“You can be our man on the inside,” Finn says. “Like a spy in the house of Hudson-Hummel.”

“Oh, I like that,” Kurt says. “Very Bond-esque.” 

“That’s you. Double-oh-seven,” Finn says, laughing a little. 

“I have the perfect outfits for the mission, never fear.” 

“Never doubted you for a second,” Finn says. “I know you won’t believe any of the bad stuff they say about Alexys. I don’t really know much about her mom, but Alexys is a really good person. She’s my sister.”

“I think it’d be very strange for them to know anything about her, good or bad, much less what they said to me with such certainty,” Kurt says. “And I can’t believe Carole hid her very existence from you. If Dad did something like that…” 

“He wouldn’t,” Finn says quickly, though honestly he can’t say for sure, since he would have said the same thing about his mother not that long ago. 

“Well, I think even if he would, he might consider confessing now, all things considered,” Kurt says. “Even if you couldn’t have contacted Alexys, you should have known about her.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I think,” Finn says, with a long sigh. “It’s all really messed up. I’m lucky I’ve got Puck and I don’t have to deal with all of this alone, you know?”

“Good roommates are important, yes, I definitely agree,” Kurt says. “Especially ones that don’t bring people home. Make sure he doesn’t do that.” 

“Uhhhh.”

“Setting ground rules has helped with that for the three of us here in New York,” Kurt continues. 

“No, I mean he’s not going to bring people home,” Finn says. “We have a, uh. Agreement?”

“That neither of you will bring someone back to the apartment?” 

“That we’re the only ones we’ll bring back to the apartment.”

“Oh. _Oh_. That’s new. Is that new?” 

“This specific version of the agreement,” Finn says. “It was more, you know, sex-friends, before.”

“Well, that’s… new information, at any rate,” Kurt says. “Cuts down on the roommate trouble for sure.” 

“Yup. No trouble at all! Just sex and stuff!”

“And that never causes any trouble for people,” Kurt says, sounding amused. “No, that’s good, Finn, it is.” 

“I’m really happy. I’ve got Puck and Alexys. I wish Mom weren’t being how she’s being, or hadn’t been how she was, I guess, but otherwise I’m really happy, Kurt,” Finn says. 

“You do know the truth of it, and I admit, it makes me consider things they tell us differently,” Kurt says. 

Finn nods to himself. “Yeah, like you’re rethinking everything you were told your whole life.”

“Right! So many things are at least a little bit open to interpretation.” 

“It’s all so messed up.”

“Is there anything you want me to try to find out specifically?” 

Finn sighs. “I don’t know. It’s hard to know what I don’t know. I guess make sure they aren’t going to mess with Alexys?”

“Okay. I’ll also try to pay attention to anything that seems particularly over the top or incongruous with what you’ve said.”

“Thanks, Kurt. I’m really glad you called. I wasn’t going to get you involved right now, but I’m glad you know,” Finn says. 

“As it turns out, I’m here to serve,” Kurt says. “I’m sorry I don’t have more information for you.” 

“I just really appreciate the call. It’s good having you on my side.”

“The shocking thing is that they’d even think there should be a side other than yours, really,” Kurt says. 

“Yeah, Mom just can’t see it. She was over here banging on my door to get pictures back!” Finn says. “It was crazy. We hid back in the bedroom.”

Kurt sounds like he’s spluttering. “You had to hide?” 

“We turned off the lights and snuck to the back.”

“That’s amazing,” Kurt says. “How long did it take her to leave?” 

“Over an hour!” Finn says. 

“Oh my god. Did you grab earbuds or something?” 

“We found a successful way of distracting ourselves.”

“While I hope she doesn’t do it again, if she does, order takeout.” 

“If she does it again, I think Puck’s planning to call the cops,” Finn says, sighing. “I just can’t believe she’s willing to go this far to keep from admitting what she did to Alexys was mean and selfish.”

Kurt echoes the sigh. “It sounds like she truly believes she’s in the right, even now. If Puck does call the cops, send me a text as a heads up.” 

“Will do. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but Puck does what Puck wants. Always has,” Finn says. 

“Yes, I suppose so,” Kurt agrees. 

“Say hey to everybody out there for me?”

“Of course. Tell Puck I said hello.” 

“I will,” Finn says. “It was great talking to you, Kurt.”

“You too, Finn. Hang in there.” 

“Just like the kitten on the poster in Ms. Pillsbury’s office.”

“Yes. Be like the kitten,” Kurt says. “We’ll talk again soon, Finn. Bye.” 

“Bye.” Finn laughs to himself as he sends a quick text to Puck: _Talked to Kurt. He’s on our side!_

_They tried to persuade him otherwise?_ Puck sends back. 

_Yup. Either Mom didn’t tell Burt the truth or Burt didn’t tell it to Kurt._

_Maybe combo of both. He going to talk to them?_

_He’s our spy now. He’s Kurt Bond._

_He probably would drive expensive cars._

_No place to park them in the city though._

_Rentals then. But cool. Anything else interesting?_

_You heading home?_

_Five minutes out_

_Tell you all about it then._

_Promises promises_

Finn laughs again and pockets his phone as he starts walking back towards the apartment. He beats Puck by just a couple of minutes, but it gives him a chance to ditch his school stuff and fix them both a snack, grabbing two cans of pop for them as well. He has the snacks and drinks on the coffee table already when Puck walks in. 

“Movie night or after-school snack?” Puck says, dropping onto the sofa next to Finn. 

“Can’t it be both?” Finn asks. 

“Only if it’s movie afternoon.” 

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

Puck nods and shrugs, reaching for one of the cans of pop and opening it. “Or, in this case, storytime.” 

“So, it’s probably exactly what you guessed. Mom told Burt about my evil sister and how terrible I’m being—no details about what _actually_ happened to Alexys, of course—so Burt turned around and called Kurt, I guess to try to talk some sense into me or whatever,” Finn says. “Lucky for me, Kurt wasn’t buying it and called me for more information.”

“I’m trying to picture Alexys with some kind of demonic costume, and it’s just not working for me.” 

“I know, right? He had no idea her mom had died or that she’d been in the foster system. He wanted to know more about her, like did we look alike,” Finn says. 

“Did you tell him I said you could be fraternal twins?” 

“I told him you agreed we looked related.”

Puck snorts. “Underselling me.”

“He said he’d probably be in town in a few weeks, when Burt gets his test results back,” Finn says. “Maybe we can arrange for him and Alexys to meet each other. I think that would be cool.”

“We could drive down, since her schedule’s less flexible. Burt’d totally believe Kurt was driving to Columbus to go shopping or something.” 

“Oh yeah. That’d work!”

“So that was pretty much it?” Puck asks. 

“Yeah. Kurt sounded pretty shocked at how far Mom went to hide Alexys from me,” Finn says. 

“I guess it might be weird for him. Alexys is your half-sibling, not a step-sibling, but still weird,” Puck says thoughtfully. 

“Yeah, I told him she was kind of like his sister now, too. He didn’t seem to think that was bad or weird or anything, though.”

“Well, yeah, that too, but he has to wonder what Carole really would think or whatever about him.” 

Finn shrugs. “He didn’t really sound like he cared, honestly, once he heard the real story.”

“Still weird.” Puck takes a bite and shrugs. “Did you try to get him to give you more reasons why I shouldn’t call the cops?” 

“No. I told him you planned to, though, so I guess he can warn her… or not.”

“It’s a very valid option, is all.” 

“I didn’t say I would try to stop you,” Finn says. 

“I could totally be a cop,” Puck says, then shakes his head. “Nah. Handcuffs could be fun, though.” 

Finn feels his face getting a little hot. “Yeah, maybe so.”

Puck grins. “Okay, movie afternoon can start now.” 

“Cool. I think it’s your pick this time,” Finn says. 

“A seasonally-appropriate baseball movie it is.”


	13. Dead To Me

Finn never would have considered a meal eaten at the Waffle House brunch, but Puck says that as long as the meal is served after ten and involves orange juice, it counts. Thus, they are at—technically—brunch when Alexys calls. 

“Hey Alexys!” Finn says. “We’re at brunch.”

“Ooh, fancy!” Alexys says. “Are there strawberries?” 

“It’s at Waffle House,” Finn clarifies. 

“At least there’s waffles,” Alexys says. “How’s my favorite and only brother?” 

“Crazy mom, awesome sister, so more or less the same as usual,” Finn says. “How’s my favorite and only sister?”

“Bored,” Alexys says. “When can you and Puck come down again?” 

“I’m not sure. Soon, probably. Also, Kurt’s supposed to be in town soon, too, and you two can meet!”

“It’s sort of like a family reunion,” Alexys says. 

“What’s she saying?” Puck mouths to Finn. 

Finn moves the phone away from his ear a little. “She wants to see us again soon. She’s bored.”

“It’s good she doesn’t live here, she’d really be bored,” Puck says. “Ask her what her schedule’s like in a week and a half, maybe.” 

“Puck’s thinking maybe a week and a half,” Finn says into the phone. “Would that work for you?”

“Week and a half?” Alexys hums into the phone for a few seconds. “Yeah, that’s good!” 

“Great. Anything you want to do while we’re in town?”

“Is it totally weird if I say that we should go to the Children’s Museum? Because we totally _should_ have gone together, years ago.” 

“Puck, you good with the Children’s Museum?” Finn asks. 

“Hell yeah,” Puck says. 

“We’re down with the Children’s Museum,” Finn tells Alexys. “It’s way better than regular museums, anyway.”

“Awesome. We’ll go get burgers and hot dogs afterwards,” Alexys says. 

“Definitely. My treat. You have to bring Sam along, too,” Finn says. 

“We are the weirdest family,” Alexys says, sounding absolutely delighted about it. 

“I think you mean the _best_ family.”

“Strangest?” Puck guesses. 

“Weirdest,” Finn says. 

“E, all of the above,” Puck says cheerfully. 

Finn nods. “Pretty much.”

“We can play board games and debate word choices,” Alexys says. “What’s your favorite board game?” 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Finn asks. “Only Puck knows.”

“A board game secret? Sure,” Alexys says. 

“I _love_ Trivial Pursuit.”

“He does,” Puck says loudly. “Confirmed true.” 

“Oh, okay!” Alexys says. “I like that. We’ll play that, then.” 

“Awesome! We might have the Star Wars edition questions somewhere,” Finn says, looking at Puck and raising his eyebrows questioningly.

“Yeah, they’re in the coat closet,” Puck says. “Back of the shelf.” 

“Is Puck some kind of Cam Jansen?” Alexys asks. 

“She wants to know if you’re a kind of Cam Jansen,” Finn says to Puck, then back to Alexys, “or do you want to just talk to Puck?”

“Nah, I figured you’d know if he had a photographic memory or not.” 

“He has a selectively photographic memory,” Finn says, grinning at Puck. 

“I have very good mental images of some things,” Puck agrees as he returns the grin. 

“Oh, geez,” Alexys says, mock-complaining. 

“We’re very cute and charming,” Finn tells her. “You love us.”

“Obviously, since I invited you down.” 

“I thought you just wanted somebody to go to the Children’s Museum with.”

“You should be glad it was you I invited, then!” Alexys says gleefully. 

“Yeah, ’cause now you won’t be the tallest person there,” Finn says. “I make you look almost short. Well, almost not-that-tall.”

“Neither of you are ever going to be considered short,” Puck says, shaking his head. 

“Not compared to you, anyway,” Finn says. 

“Hey now,” Puck says, frowning. 

“We have to be nice to short people, Finn,” Alexys says. 

“Hey! I’m super nice to Puck, all the time,” Finn says. “Aren’t I nice?” he asks Puck. 

“‘Nice’ isn’t the word I’d use, but you’re good.” 

“Puck says I’m good, which isn’t the same as nice, but it’s close,” Finn says to Alexys.

Alexys laughs. “I’ll let you finish brunch, then. Text me some approximate times.” 

“Yeah, I will,” Finn says. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Sounds good. Bye, Finn!” 

“Bye, Alexys!”

“We should use that credit card your mom gave you for ‘emergencies’ for the hotel, stay two or three nights,” Puck says as Finn hangs up. 

“May as well,” Finn says. “She’ll cancel it eventually.”

“Exactly,” Puck says. “Hit Walmart now or later?”

“Let’s go now. We can figure out dinner, too, in case we want to defrost something.”

“Chicken, you mean. That’s all we have frozen.”

“I might have hidden some meatballs under the chicken,” Finn says. “The Italian kind, not the Ikea kind, so the bag’s small.”

“Now I want IKEA meatballs,” Puck says sadly. “Okay, Walmart it is.”

Walmart trips always take three times longer than they probably should. Puck says it’s because of the subliminal messages in the elevator music, but Finn thinks it’s probably due to the sheer volume of interesting, tacky crap in even the smaller stores. Somehow they end up with at least a few more things in their cart than planned, too. 

“You know,” Finn says, as he pokes through a rack of on-sale shower curtains, “we could move into a one bedroom place when our lease is up, save some money.”

“We could move into a one bedroom place in Cincinnati and save gas money, too,” Puck counters. “Assuming you’re down with transferring.” 

Finn nods. “ _Or_ we could see if Alexys and Sam want to go in on a two-bedroom.”

“If you find some long-lost insurance trust, we can just get a house, they can move Tyler and Matt in too, and we’ll confuse all the neighbors.” 

“Ooh, yeah! Maybe I had a great-great-aunt somewhere who put me in her will without me knowing,” Finn says. 

“We could start playing the lottery, I guess,” Puck says. “Buy one less shower curtain and a lottery ticket instead.” 

Finn puts down the shower curtain package he’s holding. “These are all ugly, anyway.”

“We should get one of those mattress covers, though. The zipper kind,” Puck says. “You think those are with sheets?” 

“Probably.”

“We could start selling things, if we want to move,” Puck says as they walk through the store. “Craigslist or something.” 

“We should look at Alexys’s furniture, too, see what of ours is better and what of hers is better,” Finn says. 

“Let’s be honest, we all have Walmart and Ikea specials,” Puck says, grinning a little. “Unless Alexys has some antiques hidden away.” 

“Doubtful,” Finn says. “Besides, I like our junky furniture. It feels cozy.”

“I think that’s our habit of sitting on it under blankets.” 

“We should check out the blankets and see if any are on sale.”

“I like that ide—” Puck suddenly stops mid-sentence, stopping the cart as well as they round a corner into the next aisle. 

“What?” Finn asks, looking at Puck in confusion, until he follows the line of Puck’s gaze to the other end of the aisle. Carole is standing behind a shopping cart, her hands on the handle, staring back at Puck—and Finn—with a look on her face like she’s trying to decide whether she can get away with running one or both of them over with her cart. 

“This is the problem with small towns,” Puck says under his breath. 

“Well. Hello,” Carole finally says. “You can’t lock me out of Walmart, at least.” 

“Yeah, well, you can’t bang on our door at Walmart, either,” Finn says, starting to slowly back out of the aisle. He grabs Puck’s arm as he creeps backwards. 

“Everyone’s entitled to be at Walmart,” Carole says, following them slowly. “But you aren’t entitled to just help yourself to whatever pictures you want.” 

“She’s going to tail us,” Puck whispers. 

“Just keep moving,” Finn says, not moving his lips any more than necessary. 

“Finn! Did you hear what I said?” Carole demands. 

“Uh, I’m sorry ma’am, you must have us confused with someone else,” Finn says loudly. “I don’t know you. You’re a _stranger_.”

“Finn,” Puck says in an even lower whisper. “We’re too old for stranger danger, babe.” 

“That’s why I said the first part,” Finn whispers back.

“Finn Hudson, this is not a joking matter,” Carole says, her voice rising with each word. “I demand you return all of those photographs immediately.” 

“And now that I have copies of all of them, I can,” Finn whispers to Puck.

Puck shakes his head. “Technically I don’t think she could make a good argument for you having no rights to them.” 

“Those are my private property and I do not want other people to see them, especially people who aren’t even from Lima!” Carole says. 

“Uh, well, that’s too bad, stranger lady that I don’t know, because I already made plenty of copies, and I have digital files, _and_ I’ve already shared them,” Finn says, in the loud voice again. “And anyway, I’m pretty sure _I_ have a right to pictures of myself.”

“There’s some kind of legal case about that, I think,” Puck says, speaking in a normal volume for the first time since they spotted Carole. 

“Stay out of this, Noah,” Carole says sharply. “This isn’t your concern.” 

“Hey! Don’t talk to him like that,” Finn says, aggressively pointing at Carole. 

“It’s not,” Carole insists. “It shouldn’t be anyone’s concern but my own, and the fact that you distributed my images.” 

“Yeah, good luck finding a jury that’ll think what you did to Alexys was okay, and that I’m not allowed to share pictures of our dad with her,” Finn says. “And I have a key to your house, Mom, because it’s my house, too.”

“You don’t need to be affiliating with Alexys!” Carole says. “She wants something from you, I know it. You need to stop before you do something rash like visit where she lives!” 

“Chicken pox, you think?” Puck says, whispering again. “For the rash. Poison ivy?” 

“Oh my god, Mom. ‘Affiliating’? Really? She’s not the mob,” Finn says. 

“She is a member of a union, does that count?” Puck says. 

Finn gives Puck a skeptical look. “What? No.”

“It might to her, I mean!” Puck says. 

“What are the two of you whispering about now?” Carole says. “Finn, you need to listen to yourself and think critically about Alexys’s claims.” 

“For the last time, Mom, I believe her, I’ve seen stuff in your own handwriting that makes me pretty sure you actually believe her, too, and looking at those pictures just makes me think that Dad probably left you way before he died,” Finn says. He crosses his arms and stops backing up, staring at Carole and daring her to argue with him.

“How— how—” Carole says, then glares intensely at Finn. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing about how adulthood really works, and you’re applying your limited understanding to _photographs_ to make up lies about me!” 

“Admit it. He was already living in Cinci by my first birthday, wasn’t he?” Finn says. 

“No. Of course not,” Carole says quickly, still glaring. 

“He was living with Alexys’s mom. I bet that’s the apartment where he died, too,” Finn insists. 

“Why are you trying so hard to make this into something?” Carole asks. “Why can’t you accept what I’ve told you?” 

“Because you lied to me, like, a _lot_.”

“I protected us. I didn’t lie. Lying is cruel.” 

“You lied about how Dad died. You lied about Alexys. You’re lying now,” Finn says. 

“Bring the photographs back, Finn, and we can forget about Alexys, pretend none of this happened.” 

“But I don’t want to forget it happened,” Finn says. “I like Alexys. I like knowing the truth. Even if it isn’t nice or easy, it’s better than lies. I’ll mail you back the originals of the photos of Dad, but I’m keeping the copies, and I’m keeping my relationship with my sister.”

“You don’t mean that,” Carole says. 

“Let’s get out of here fast,” Puck whispers. “She looks funny.” 

“I do mean it,” Finn says. 

“You would choose her over me?” 

“When did the choosing get thrown in?” Puck asks. 

“I didn’t think I had to,” Finn counters. “I can’t see any reason why I _should_ have to. You don’t ever have to meet her, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see her.”

“You’re going to visit her in Cincinnati?” Carole asks, her voice eerily calm. 

“I’ve already been to visit her in Cincinnati, and yeah, I’m going to visit her again. Probably frequently. She _is_ my sister, after all,” Finn says. 

“I see,” Carole says. 

“This doesn’t seem good,” Puck says quietly, looking from Carole to Finn. 

Finn squares up and keeps his voice steady. “Good. I’m glad you understand.”

“I understand perfectly that you’re choosing that whore’s child over me,” Carole says. “You are— you are _dead_ to me.” 

“What?” Finn says.

Carole doesn’t say anything else, just raises an eyebrow and then turns her cart the other way, heading down the aisle. 

“You’re kidding me. That’s ridiculous,” Finn calls after her. “Mom. _Mom!_ ”

“We’re being punk’d, probably,” Puck says. 

“Mom!” Finn shouts after Carole, but she keeps walking away, spine straight. Finn feels like the wind has been knocked out of him as he watches her round the corner. He looks over to Puck, shaking his head a little. 

“We can get the mattress protector another day,” Puck says, steering the cart towards the front of the store. “Come on. We’ll get ice cream on the way out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is going on hiatus until the new year so we can focus on our Story of Three Boys advent. We'll see you again in January!


End file.
